Hugo Fontela

HUGO FONTELA (Grado, Asturias, 1986).
Untitled. Manhattan.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and localized.
Measurements: 90 x 90 cm; 94 x 94 cm (frame).

This work by Hugo Fontela can be linked to his Japanese Landscapes series, but also to his views of coastal landscapes from Manhattan, in which the artist explores the poetics of a landscape imbued with lyricism and emotion, inviting the viewer to immerse himself in a textured and misty atmosphere.

Fontela's love for painting began in childhood. Under the guidance of the Asturian painter Amado González Hevia (Favila), he entered the School of Arts and Crafts in Avilés when he was fourteen years old. He later entered the Oviedo School of Art, and when he was about to begin studying for a degree in Fine Arts, he decided to move to New York and joined the Art Students League of New York. In 2005 he received the BMW Painting Award, in the twentieth edition, and in 2007 he won the prize for best artist at the Graphic Art Fair ESTAMPA,3 awarded by the Association of Art Critics of Madrid. In 2006, together with Juan Hidalgo, he participated as a guest at the XVIII Bienal de Pintura de Zamora. In 2011 the Museum of the Abbey of Montserrat, in Barcelona, begins an exhibition of his works made in America, which is inaugurated by the Prince and Princess of Asturias. That same year, as a result of two stays in Rio de Janeiro with Oscar Niemeyer (2009 and 2011), the exhibition Niemeyer by Fontela is held at the Niemeyer Center in Avilés. Banco Sabadell has his work. Among the centers that have exhibited his works are the Casa de Vacas in Madrid, the Revillagigedo Palace in Gijón, the Círculo de Arte in Barcelona, the Cervantes Institute in Chicago, the 100kubik Gallery in Cologne, the Niemeyer Center, the Gabarron Foundation and the Carles Taché Gallery in Barcelona.