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.
This Must Be the Place
Inaugural Exhibition6 Apr - 4 May 2024OnehungaThis Must Be the Place is the inaugural exhibition at Gow Langsford’s flagship Onehunga premises. It brings together the work of a diverse range of artists who respond to themes of place, belonging, and cultural legacy. In examining locality in Aotearoa and Oceania through a modern and contemporary lens, This Must Be the Place showcases a diverse range of practices and contextual frameworks from the region.Read moreThe Plimsoll Line
Hugo Koha Lindsay14 Feb - 9 Mar 2024Auckland CityThe Plimsoll Line presents Hugo Koha Lindsay’s latest body of paintings. These works bear a visual relationship to earlier iterations of his practice – with monochromatic or dichromatic palettes, clusters of abstract markings, and a clean, considered aesthetic. Yet, they differ in the level of intent behind the mark making. Lindsay’s earlier works made use of incidental processual markings, whereas the paintings in The Plimsoll Line feature more deliberate impressions.Read moreNotations
Hugo Koha Lindsay7 - 23 Dec 2022Auckland CityPrimarily an abstract painter, Hugo Koha Lindsay’s (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Maru) practice explores concepts of mapping within a cognitive and spatial framework. Lindsay is interested in the shifting ambience of the city, with traces of the urban environment or allusions to its planning, construction, and our interactions with it often apparent in his choice of materials. How the intermingling dynamics of public and private space—macro and micro—are experienced, digested and take on new forms in cognitive space are of importance to Lindsay, who looks to painting as a way of translating these experiences.Read moreof common walls
Hugo Koha Lindsay2 - 24 Oct 2019A two-fold question frames Hugo Koha Lindsay’s most recent body of work: what is a landscape? And what can it be within the language of abstraction? Lindsay poses this question in the context of the environment of late capitalism; a landscape of sorts that is both the physical land and buildings, and the socio-economic atmosphere. He submits his paintings as “alternative cartographies”, maps that don’t simply describe geographical landmass, but which ask: what is the physical and psychological experience of being in this space? Lindsay’s paintings featured in of common walls are the direct residue of such musings.Read moreBut will it float
Hugo Koha Lindsay21 Mar - 14 Apr 2018Primarily 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.”Read moreHugo Koha Lindsay
28 Sep - 20 Oct 2016Lorne Street [2008 - 2021]Gow Langsford Gallery are pleased to exhibit new works from young, emerging Auckland artist, Hugo Koha Lindsay. Currently working towards a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland,...Read more
Hugo Koha Lindsay Exhibition Review on EyeContact
March 7, 2024Arts writer John Hurrell has reviewed Hugo Koha Lindsay's exhibition The Plimsoll Line on EyeContact. 'Lindsay’s controlled vigour is captivating, for that graphic suggestion of...Read morePainting Politics Symposium
July 10, 2019Painting Politics, supported by Politico-Aesthetics Research Centre (PARC) Faculty of Arts & Faculty of Creative Industries, The University of Auckland, Dame Jenny Gibbs, and The...Read moreHugo Koha Lindsay in Group Exhibition at Fort Delta
October 12, 2018Hugo Koha Lindsay will be included in a group exhibition Open Eye Signal at Fort Delta, Melbourne. The exhibition opens on 26 October and runs...Read moreMartin Ball and Hugo Koha Lindsay Parkin Prize Finalists for 2017
July 18, 2018Gow Langsford artists Hugo Koha Lindsay and Martin Ball have just been announced as finalists in the 2017 Parkin Drawing Prize, New Zealand's premier award...Read moreMartin Ball and Hugo Koha Lindsay Finalists for 2018 Parkin Drawing Award
July 3, 2018Out of a total of 463 entries, Gallery artists Martin Ball and Hugo Koha Lindsay have been announced as finalists for the 2018 Parkin Drawing...Read moreHugo Koha Lindsay at Auckland Art Fair 2018
May 25, 2018New works by Hugo Koha Lindsay have been installed at our Auckland Art Fair Booth D3 open today from 11am-5pm, and then 5-9pm for the...Read more
Aotearoa Art Fair 2025 | Booth G23 and U44
1 - 4 May 2025Gow Langsford is excited to return to the Aotearoa Art Fair with curated presentations of new work by leading contemporary voices across two booths. The...Read moreSydney Contemporary 2024 | Booth C02
5 - 8 Sep 2024Gow Langsford Gallery returns to Sydney Contemporary , bringing with it a rich tapestry of talent cultivated over the years. The central focus of the...Read moreSydney Contemporary 2019 | Booth B02
12 - 15 Sep 2019For Sydney Contemporary 2019, Gow Langsford Gallery is showcasing a range of works from New Zealand and Australian artists and works from prominent British sculptor Tony Cragg. Find us at Booth B02 to view works by John Olsen, Dale Frank, Lisa Roet, Colin McCahon, Gordon Walters, Laurence Aberhart, Dick Frizzell, Michael Hight, Reuben Paterson, Hugo Koha Lindsay, Judy Millar and Max Gimblett.Read moreAuckland Art Fair 2018 | Booth D3
23 - 27 May 2018Gow Langsford Gallery is proud to present a series of solo exhibitions from three of our represented artists at the 2018 Auckland Art Fair. The exhibitions will be unveiled throughout the duration of the Fair: Dale Frank (Wednesday 23rd -Thursday 24th), Hugo Koha Lindsay (Friday 25th) and John Pule (Saturday 26th – Sunday 27th).Read more