hugo anderson
New London, NH
Anderson opened his first studio to the public in Colorado in 1973 and has been painting fulltime since then. He now lives and paints in NH.
Message
Returning from two years in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone in 1968, I stopped in Paris to see a Matisse Exhibition I had read about in Time magazine. Two hours changed the course of my life. Rather than Law, Art became my new direction. I still went to law school for a year and then worked in a bank for a year before opening my first studio in 1973. Graduate school in art didn't come until 1986-87, having had time to learn to draw and paint on my own first. After a year as an Artistic Director at a non-profit workshop in 1988, I settled back into fulltime in my studio. I am currently living and working in New London, NH.
Statement
My first experiences with art were drawings. I love to draw. I have over 3000 figure drawings stored in my studio. In college (1964-68) the first art class I could get into as a non-art major was Advanced Painting 2. I got an A, based upon my imagination not my painting skills I suspect. The figure was my first choice of subject in both drawing and painting, but in Colorado in the '70's mountain paintings were what sold. I taught myself to paint doing mountain landscapes; I climbed mountains, took pictures and painted them in my studio, and they sold well. I liked painting the land and weather of the West, but photo realism began to feel like a factory job. Take the picture. Paint the painting.
In NYC in 1984 I discovered found objects. Things left on the street followed me home to my studio on Lexington Ave and evolved into figures. This led to grad school and an MFA in sculpture in 1987. When I returned to painting in 1988 in Philadelphia, I began incorporating found elements into my work, using collage and stencils. Using parts of stencils and ones of my own creation I have developed a method of mark making that has evolved over 30 years; the letters or fragments of letters also reference language and 'civilization". Over 50 years I have continued to paint both the figure and landscape.