KEEN & DARING
the daring do.
artist profile
VICTOR HUGO ZAYAS
THE MOVEMENT SERIES MOVES INWARD
When surveying the works of painter/sculptor Victor Hugo Zayas, there are two defining connections among them: space and movement. Space as defined by the physical properties of height, width, and depth, as well as the theoretical ideas of space, outlined by the writings of astronomers as far back as ancient Mesopotamia (1000 BCE). For the whole of Victor Hugo Zayas’ creative life, he has been looking to the stars for guidance, drawn to the works of Carl Sagan, Immanuel Kant, and Isaac Newton to provide defining clues as to what we as humans possess as creatures who perceive, both inwardly and outwardly. As for movement, Victor Hugo explains, that it is an all-encompassing awareness that never leaves him, that we are constantly in motion, all bodies are in movement, both biological and heavenly.
The works that have resulted from this sensitivity to physics, starting from the artist’s time as a student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, are expansive, strong, structural compositions that reference not only the expanding universe but the expansion of humanity on earth, manifestations of architecture, urban infrastructure, the Los Angeles River basin, and “the grid.”
On the other end of the spectrum, introspection or inward movement appears as quick gestural expressions. Drawings created on cocktail napkins in busy cafés or across the pages of sketchbooks while walking the neighborhoods that surround his studio. As much as Zayas is able to contemplate our ever-expanding universe through paintings that make up the GRID and LA RIVER series, these expressions of his day to day life are quick and on the fly. The drawings in the WALKING LA series which chronicle figures on the streets of Los Angeles, primarily the homeless but also street vendors and the occasional pedestrian, were created in a single moment in time - all gut and intuition.
To fully comprehend Zayas’ body of work as it began to build within the walls of his sprawling warehouse studio one has to recognize two sides of a creative psyche made manifest. Inward and outward observations put to canvas, clay, metal and paper, towering flat files containing hundreds of drawings and sketchbooks, spines bent back, pages rippled with watercolor and ink. Every idea put to paper a memory in the artist’s mind, (inward/outward). Then at some point Zayas began to merge these two halves, as if time was compressing the artist’s two distinctive sides into one. Zayas began taking his figurative linework and layer many poses within one frame, a live model changing positions over and over and Zayas applying form onto canvas at times by squeezing the paint directly from the tube. The resulting MOVEMENT SERIES which has been ongoing since his time at Art Center, represents the full breadth of Zayas’s focus as an artist. Early works of the MOVEMENT SERIES represent something very special: The artist in his studio, with a live model, moving in collaboration to create a one-to-one expression of a momentary connection.
Recently Victor Hugo Zayas has undergone a profound shift in his life, moving from Los Angeles to Newport Beach as well as keeping a studio in his home in Baja, Mexico. Establishing a base in Baja, with views of the Pacific, a vegetable garden, and massive ancient cacti on all sides, may be the reason why in recent years the subject matter of Zayas’ paintings has been shifting from expansively outward to an emphasis on introspection. Both figurative and architectural, recent canvases show a push into an imaginative space that encompasses Zayas’ knowledge of form, depth, color, and composition. Inspired by earlier works within the MOVEMENT SERIES, Zayas’ exploration of the figure in motion goes deeper into his intuitive senses, using fewer live model sessions and more memory and, as the artist recently expressed, “the idea of the figure as architecture - the idea of the figure as both vessel and a shelter for the self.”
On the subject of the body as architecture and how it relates to the most recent additions to the MOVEMENT SERIES, one can perceive a distinctive foreground, middle, and background. By leaving areas of the canvas raw and exposed while in other areas building levels of line and color, the depth of these works are tangable, architectural as well as figurative. In the study of architecture and the continuity of exterior to interior design, the architect will often make a cutaway of the building to analyze the balance between the façade and the structural interior. This act is called a “section cut” and it is a mental exercise that you can tell Zayas is making while painting. Because these figures are from the artist’s memory, not a live model, there is an urge to double back, to adjust, to express the moment but also to create intent – a narrative. This may be the first time Victor Hugo Zayas has had the opportunity to sit with the idea of the figure in the same capacity he has explored the cosmos and urban expanse. His figures are not only in motion but they are moving from one place to another. There is a journey being expressed, physical borders are being crossed, and the viewer is being invited to join a caravan of sorts.
In adding the element of narrative to his already strong sense of observation, Victor Hugo Zayas has entered a compelling era within his practice, one that has been earned through continuous creative experimentation and exploration.