Hugo Crosthwaite

Allowing the act of drawing to organically dictate his compositions, Hugo Crosthwaite juxtaposes a wide range of textural and tonal ranges against spaces that alternate from dense and atmospheric to flat and graphic. His recent series, Tijuanerias, pays homage to Goya's "Caprichos" with its depiction of grotesque figures and themes executed in an informal, sketch-like style. His figures—the everyday men, women and children that populate his native city of Tijuana—are presented in a non-idealized documentary style that allows them to appear in their humble familiarity and authenticity. The joining of abstraction with classically-rendered imagery creates a feeling of spontaneity and vagueness; each work becomes an enfoldment of personal vision in which reality, history, and mythology collide as he explores the complexities of human expression.

Hugo Crosthwaite was born in Tijuana and spent his formative years in Rosarito, Mexico. He graduated from San Diego State University in 1997 with a BA in Applied Arts. Crosthwaite lives and works in Mexico. His works are in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Miami Art Museum, FL; Boca Raton Museum of Art, FL; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA; and San Diego Museum of Art, CA. He was selected to participate in the inaugural 2013 California Pacific Biennial, curated by Dan Cameron, at the Orange County Museum of Art.

More information may be obtained at http://www.luisdejesus.com/ and http:// www.hugocrosthwaite.com.