Premio Combat Prize

Artist statement
Hugo Bergeron organizes his artistic practice around painting and drawing within the spectrum of landscape art. In it he seeks to highlight symptoms of the transformations undergone by the land and the environment as a result of human activity, while exploring the influences of the illusions inherent to images, paintings and societies. Through fictional, figurative and abstract universes, he hints at the idea of a space that could embody the representational gap delineated by obsessions of formalism, attachment to specific themes, or insistence on predetermined artistic stances. This system affords him a point of entry into an absurd and contradictory reality, a non-linear process that creates the break needed to shatter conventional representation. Conscious of life’s fragile nature, Bergeron strives to depict the richness and beauty that paradoxically subsists within the tragic state of the modern world.
Bergeron’s art draws on various aesthetics to suggest the evolution of landscape painting and art in general, using style to confront homogeny, and erect a multifaceted approach to painting. From this intent stems an investigation on the pictorial systems and processes used to modulate images. By using his own experience and knowledge of color theory as well as an acute awareness of drawing’s intrinsic spatial evocativeness, Bergeron develops the notion of space as a complex entity. This prolific exploration of color and form brings Hugo Bergeron progressively closer to a comprehension of human experience, from its stated aspirations, to its actual outcomes.
Biography
Born in 1981, Hugo Bergeron completed a Bachelor degree in visual arts at l’École des arts visuels et médiatiques of UQAM in 2008. Semi-finalist in the 2010 Canadian Painting Competition, his works have been exhibited in Canada, France, Lebanon and soon Brazil. In 2013, he participated in “Le projet peinture/The Painting Project” at la Galerie de l’UQAM, in Montreal. His paintings are part of many public and corporate collections such as Prêt d’œuvres d’art, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, National Bank, TD Bank, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, Mouvement Desjardins, and Loto-Québec. Galerie Graff has been representing Hugo Bergeron since 2008; he lives and works in Montreal.