Hugo Pondz
1975
France
Hugo has always been surrounded by art. His father, an antique dealer, immersed him in the art world at an early age, his mother used to paint country landscapes for the pleasure of relaxation. But one day when she was out, he took her box of paints and started to paint, or rather tried to do something. “I had no experience with this material, and it was alas catastrophic”! He was sixteen years old.
12 years later he met Jean-Pierre Hubert who introduced him to a real painting technique for the very first time. “He introduced me to the surrealist universe which he hung directly on to: Dali, Ernst, Magritte, Tanguy, and above all Dali's colors.” he also learned, like him, the color chemistry of that too many painters leave out.
The greatest discovery was De Chirico, whose empty, melancholy and minimalist spaces were to have a profound effect on the way he would now perceive the world, and especially the canvas. “I have always loved the large empty spaces with a small human presence, even if in my last paintings this presence grew up. Later, I discovered Hopper and the American line, simple and profoundly effective”
“Blue, the beating heart of an upright world Via deep, dense blues, almost luminous concrete and swimming pools with calm, crystal-clear water, the artist - an observer -captures the silence, imposing - in an almost minimalist setting splashed with light and shadow - a latent danger.”
“A subtle alchemy is immediately created between the observer and the artwork, and the ease with which the piece is read further draws the observer into this almost too still world. In it, children, waiting, looking towards the horizon, lead us to introspection, beyond a barrier we will all have to overcome one day.”
“Hugo Pondz’s azure blue universe shakes its audience awake with huge gusts of fresh air. Creating the perfect dichotomy between empty and full, he invites contemplation in an almost minimalist world into which we are joyfully immersed. Whether by a pool in New York, on the green of a golf course or in the middle of a car park, all of Hugo Pondz's paintings are filled with unique depth.”
“Hugo Pondz, is a regular visitor to New York in his dreams and is interested in both the urban landscape of the city and places empty and forgotten. The characters are waiting or dreaming and maybe both . It seems there is a war between shadows and light. The aim is straightforward: to create paintings that provide a strong sense of places in which the time stands still in waiting,....In terms of important influences, he admires the work of the American artist Edward Hopper and Giorgio de Chirico”
Stephen Jared Los Angeles