Hugo Koha Lindsay

b. 1987, New Zealand (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Maru)
Lives and works in Auckland

Hugo Koha Lindsay (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Maru) has crafted a practice that engages with abstraction-based painting methodologies. Lindsay views abstraction as not separate from the realities of everyday life, but as a byproduct of the increasing abstraction of real-world processes, and the languages produced by them. Additionally, He is interested in painting as a means to interpret phenomenological experience, or the ways in which particular spaces might feel rather than appear.

Lindsay is interested in pursuing painting as a means to interpret the intermingling of macro and micro environments in daily experience. His artistic language adopts marks from the personal surroundings of his home and studio and from the city around him. A logic of palimpsest is evident in his paintings, where systems of accrual often take place through experimental mark making and open pictorial space. His canvases can be unstretched, cut, sewn, and re-stretched as he explores some of the processes of making that are usually disguised within a finished painting. These systems of accrual frequently create contradictory visual relationships, resulting in paintings that are interdisciplinary.

Sections of Lindsay’s paintings are often left raw, invoking a transitional state. Lindsay states, “The sewn paintings act as topographies – an informational surface of which territories are divided by physical boundaries for the activity of painting to occur.” This relates to his understanding of urban spaces, natural environments, weather systems, and bodies of water as exploratory subject matter for painting. His works could be considered ambient maps through their combination of open space with accrued marks. Lindsay retains an open-ended and dynamic relationship to painting, seeking to continually evolve his practice.

Lindsay holds a Master of Fine Arts with first class honours from the University of Auckland. He has received numerous awards and notable recognition including the Kaipara Arts Trust Award (2015), the Parkin Drawing Prize (2015, 2017), the Molly Morpeth Canaday Painting and Drawing Award (2016).

Lindsay has exhibited across New Zealand and Australia. He has works held in the Tattersfeld Collection, the Arts Trust Collection, the Kunstwerk Sammlung Klein Collection, Germany and private collections throughout Australasia.

Gow Langsford Gallery has represented Hugo Koha Lindsay since 2017.

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Primarily an abstract painter, Hugo Koha Lindsay adopts marks from both the personal surroundings of his home and studio and from the wider urban environment. Rubbings from the studio floor combine with swift gestures resembling surveyor markings - a type of code applied to pavements to signify future construction. Canvases are un-stretched, cut, sewn and re-stretched, organizing pictorial space through the work’s construction. Sections of Lindsay’s paintings are often left raw, invoking a transitional state. Lindsay states, “The sewn paintings act as topographies -an informational surface of which territories are divided by physical boundaries for the activity of painting to occur.”