Hugo Bastidas: On the Surface
Natalia Arias: Venus    May 17 - Jun 17, 2006

On the Surface, Hugo Bastidas’ most recent body of work, will be on view at the Nohra Haime Gallery from May 17th – June 17th, 2006.

Envisioned in New York and painted in Carmac, France, Bastidas’ new works focus on nature, the cosmos and the inherent markings in the universe. Taking traditional views of landscape from a bird’s eye view or a close-up view, he decomposes them to recompose them to create mesmerizing surfaces. The subject matter ceases to exist as it is overpowered by allover painting, where the rhythm, texture and flow sing as in a musical piece.

The primary result for the viewer is not being able to focus on anything as everything draws you apart. The eye is constantly moving from stroke to stroke, trying to see and analyze the composition, understanding little by little the subject matter to later realize that it is not important, that it is an excuse to lead us on another path. What is the path? Bastidas wants the viewer to look, to think, to respond to what painting really is, what painting should psychologically do to the viewer and the absurdity of our quest. He confronts us to look and really look, not making it easy and superficial. A stroke is a stroke is a stroke. And what is a stroke? What can be done with it? The works are about fractures, pixels and marks, where the artist blends pictorial precision to allusion.

Strokes, markings, color, perspective create a painting. Photographs today derive from pixels, and create immediate images to be responded to within seconds. Bastidas, on the other hand, challenges this notion of the immediate by obliging us to stop and carefully study these markings which are creating or recreating the universe thus making us understand our own mortality as opposed to nature which continues its undiluted path.

These pictorial surfaces deal with history and the present, where every moment that occurs is reflected in the now, and every mark that emerges records a moment that has passed. The present is the pinnacle of that. These marks are metaphors of our lives. When you are born there are no marks, then everything that happens creates a mark. Using landscape in his paintings - as opposed to humans - allows us to disconnect from the psychological element and see the world through a more scientific approach.

As one travels within the canvas, and goes fluidly from mark to mark, from stroke to stroke and from shade to shade to travel back to the first marks. One slowly enters a state of meditation which is quite hypnotic and which takes us outside of the canvas, outside of oneself and into the non physical world. Is Bastidas recreating the Akashic records? His definitive interest in each stroke, representing a moment in time, leads us to believe that this is the case and that life is a constant flow of moments where what is above is below.

The titles of the works give us small clues of the mission of the works: Density, Homogeny, Tips, Layers are all about markings and repetition. They are about a mantra of our lives and introspection. One sees that Bastidas is still using absurdity but now it is in a subtle way. Upon closer inspection one detects traditional Bastidian details such as the bucket which is being hoisted above water, but the water is in turmoil “Seau d’Eau”; the river washing the ground away and creating the forms in “Washed Away.” There is no illusion of depth in any of these works. The picture themselves are attractive. On the other hand they question “this is happening but why is it happening?”

Bastidas’ play between the representational and the flat reminds of us Pollock and his allover paintings, this time created in a more fractured way which is more appropriate to the moment we are living. These works are about history and the moment we are living, a world in flux, in turmoil, where humans and nature from one moment to the next go from quiet cognizance to a state of catastrophe.