Hugo McCloud (born 1980) is an American visual artist born in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

. He is inspired by urban landscapes and using unconventional, mostly industrial and discarded, materials to create his pieces, such as: black tar, bitumen, aluminum sheeting, oxidized steel plates, and plastic bags. He fuses these materials with conventional pigment and

woodblock printing Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is create ...

techniques. McCloud gets his references from photographs of people in developing countries. Using these photographs his work relates on topics like economy of labor,

geopolitics Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...

, and environmental issues. His works states what reversing the negative impact of society's carbon footprint could look like.

Career

McCloud moved to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

in 2009 and moved to Mexico in 2020 to live between Mexico and the United States. He is a designer and fabricator who did not go to a traditional art school. He did a residency in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

on how to make stamps and carving blocks. He had the option to send in his designs and have a manufacturer make them in this process, but McCloud wanted to partake in the manual labor and the repetition of the stamp and carving blocks process rather than just have someone else make it from his designs. Hugo McCloud currently lives and works in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, and

Tulum, Mexico Tulum () is the largest community in the Tulum (municipality), municipality of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is located on the Caribbean Sea, Caribbean coast of the state, near the site of the archeology, archaeological ruins of Tulum. Histor ...

. His early work used unconventional materials like roofing metal as a canvas, and was inspired by images the artist would find on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

. He has explained that when looking at these images, he is “drawn to

hem A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the ga ...

either because of the composition or colors or subject matter.” Using these materials, McCloud's more abstract works still connect to conversations about social class and cultural reflections of his experiences. His latest work was inspired by his experience moving to Mexico in 2018; utilizing single-use plastic bags, McCloud depicts scenes of workers and the homeless.

Major works

''Tulum'' (2014)

This piece is made on tar paper and resembles the qualities of a painterly work, when in reality it contains very little paint material. This piece is part of a series started in 2012 when McCloud was residing in

''Burdened'' (2020)

''Burdened'' is the exhibition at the

Sean Kelly Gallery Sean Kelly Gallery, founded in 1991 in New York City by British-born Sean Kelly, represents established and mid-career artists, particularly with work based in installation and performance. Owner Sean Kelly began in the British museum world by cur ...

in New York where Hugo McCloud debut and got recognized for his pieces made out of plastic bags. He was inspired by his trip to

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

, where he saw all the colorful plastic bags stacked together to travel around the world, collect plastic bags, and to talk to people to know about their experiences.

''The day before friday the 12th'' (2020)

This piece was part of his series of paintings that were made with colorful plastic bags. It is based on a photograph of refugees from

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

in a canoe that is filled with bodies crossing the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

''the burden of man: waiting to breathe'' (2021)

This piece “is directly responding to the

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

and other current issues happening simultaneously such as

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

; the

oxygen tank An oxygen tank is an oxygen storage vessel, which is either held under pressure in gas cylinders, or as liquid oxygen in a cryogenic storage tank. Uses Oxygen tanks are used to store gas for: * medical breathing at medical facilities and at home ...

s are relating to the shortages in many impoverished areas,” McCloud says. It is a large painting that has oxygen tanks all across the lower half of the piece. Overlaid and mostly on the upper part of the piece are palm trees and a map. The map is of migration paths, referencing the conflicts about the incomplete border wall between

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Solo exhibitions

* 2015 Fondazione 107, Turin, Italy * 2015 The Arts Club, London, England * 2018

, New York * 2021

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population o ...

, Ridgefield, Connecticut * 2021

, New York * 2015 The Arts Club, London, England * 2018

, New York * 2021

, Ridgefield, Connecticut * 2021

, New York

Group exhibitions

*2015

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

, New Work *2020

The Drawing Center The Drawing Center is a Manhattan, New York, museum and a nonprofit exhibition space that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. History The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of drawings at ...

, New York *2015

, New York *2021

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, Brooklyn, New York *2021

Nasher Museum of Art The Nasher Museum of Art (previously the Duke University Museum of Art) is the art museum of Duke University, and is located on Duke's campus in Durham, North Carolina, United States. The Nasher, along with Dartmouth's Hood Museum of Art and Pr ...

, New York

Collections

National Museum of African American History and Culture The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was established in December 2003 and opened its permanent home in ...

in Washington, D.C. *

North Carolina Museum of Art The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that e ...

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the list of largest art museums, largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation a ...

Margulies collection Martin Z. Margulies is a real-estate developer and collector of contemporary art and photography. Margulies Collection For many years, Margulies maintained a publicly accessible sculpture garden on Grove Isle, a small, private island with condom ...

at the Warehouse *

at Duke University *

* The Mott Warsh Collection * The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCloud, Hugo 1980 births Living people Artists from California Postmodern artists American artists 21st-century American artists