Major exhibition from Portuguese artist set for Cooper Gallery

Published On Thu 12 Feb 2015 by Grant Hill

Cooper Gallery at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) will next month host the first major solo exhibition by Portuguese artist Hugo Canoilas to take place in Scotland.

‘Someone a long time ago, now.’ will be shown over two floors of the gallery from 6th March to 10th April. Collaged projections of paintings, photographs, drawings and writings will give visitors the rare chance to engage with the striking and complex images that Canoilas produces.

The exhibition draws upon the metaphors of the window and the mirror to set in motion an interplay of two forces, one passive and affirmative, the other active and rational. Channelling aesthetics through politics, philosophy and poetry, Canoilas’ practice intertwines itself with art history and the evolution of art during early Modernism.

Curator Sophia Hao said, “Drawing upon the thought of 20th century philosophers and writers including Derrida, Heidegger and Fernando Pessoa, the art and painting of Hugo Canoilas maintains a nuanced dialogue between abstraction and social realism. By focusing on painting as a material and metaphor Canoilas has found an intimate and visually seductive way to register the ‘signals of the world’, and a powerful means to sensitise ourselves to this world.

“Immersed in a multitude of reflected and projected images, the architectural spaces of Cooper Gallery resonate with fragments and echoes of paintings, drawings and photographs, transfixed and transposed onto each other. Juxtaposed with Canoilas’ volatile use of text and newspaper cuts, the exhibition inscribes itself as a gesture of light, paint and graphite.”

Hugo Canoilas is now based in Vienna, having obtained his MA from Royal College of Art London. He has been receiving international recognition for his work since 2005 and has been featured at major international spaces while also exhibiting in group exhibitions at major venues across the world including the prestigious international contemporary art event Sao Paulo Biennial in 2012.

‘Someone a long time ago, now.’ opens at Cooper Gallery with a Preview Evening from 5.30-7.30pm on Thursday, 5th March. To accompany his installation, Canoilas has collaborated with the comic book artist Francisco Sousa Lobo to create a comic book that examines Canoilas' practice through the journeys of his alter ego Jeffrey, a 60-year-old hippie. Canoilas will take on the guise of Jeffrey for a performance during the Preview Evening on 5th March at 6pm.

More information is available by visiting http://www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/exhibitions/exhibitions/hugo-canoilas/ or emailing exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk.

Image is Magma, 2013, Hugo Canoilas, Workplace Gateshead. Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07854 953277