Nohra Haime Gallery Presents Hugo Bastidas' METAMORPHOSIS, Now thru 5/10

An exhibition by Hugo Bastidas titled METAMORPHOSIS, will be on view at the Nohra Haime Gallery from today, April 2 to May 10, 2014.

METAMORPHOSIS explores the idea of transformation and change throughout history. Building on metaphors apparent in literature and film, Bastidas uses depictions of water, passageways, and windows into space as omens to signify change.

Touched by recent natural disasters, Bastidas maximizes his painterly skills in Trois After the Flood, 2013-2014, to depict this real-life sanctuary as if it had flooded with water. A nod to what could have been, he creates a surreal environment that blurs the lines of reality to form a connection between an actual environmental disaster and imagined fiction.

Similarly, You Can Get There From Here, 2013, expresses change by bridging the gap between reality and fantasy. Bastidas uses an existing setting, densely wooded and thick with leaves, and alters it by integrating a bright, spacious opening. This simple window is a revolution that drives the painting from a narrative of mystery to illumination.

11:45, The Swollen Seine, 2013, takes a realistic approach and successfully documents a drowning French landscape at 11:45am. Flooded from unusually heavy rains, a nearly black bridge from the lack of sunlight appears, as it stands over a wide, rushing river. The stormy sky, which is actually smog produced from a nearby power plant, attests that no metaphor is needed in this scene, only reality.

Bastidas uses METAMORPHOSIS as an outletto seek the alteration of truth. With the stroke of a brush, he questions what is and what could have been, and illustrates the potential shift in the plot of humanity.

Born in Quito, Ecuador in 1956, Hugo Bastidas moved to the United States in 1960. He received a B.F.A. from Rutgers University in Newark, NJ and a M.F.A. from Hunter College in New York. Throughout his career, he has earned a Fulbright Fellowship as well as a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, among others. Bastidas exhibits widely in the United Sates and is represented in the collection of numerous museums.

DATES: April 2 - May 10, 2014

RECEPTION FOR THE ARTIST: Wednesday, April 2 from 6 - 8 p.m.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Leslie Garrett at gallery@nohrahaimegallery.com or212-888-3550