Bloubloed (Blue Blood)

Notes

Jeanne Hugo is a multidisciplinary artist based in Cape Town. Inspired by the murmurations of calligraphy brush strokes and how they translate to migrations and our desire to engage with new territories, she believes that great art, like flights of experience, stains the fabric of our subconscious mind. When the acrylic black ink seeps into her finely illustrated stained silks, it proves that she constantly pushes and pulls the boundaries between render and surrender.

Hugo’s curiosity was aroused by observing the malleable nature of culture, its formation and its interconnectedness with our natural world. The notion that we continuously migrate, evolve, shape, and sculpt our own (and collective) truths and then embellish them with a cabinet of symbols, associations, flags, literary metaphors, patterns and celebrations becomes a pattern of embodiment. Nature patiently observes this dilly dally and reflects upon us its supreme systems of operation.

Life, death and everything in between become the landscape – and ultimate proof – of time. We are innately integrated into the here and now.

After obtaining her degree in Visual Art in 2005, Hugo studied and explored the world extensively. From sketching the fjords in Greenland, painting with volcanic ash in Iceland, tackling the art of realism at the Florence Academy of Realist Art, and grappling with visual strategies at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hugo is in a constant state of wonder.