The artist-Helena Hugo
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Helena Hugo has been a full time artist since graduating in fine arts from the University of Pretoria in 1996. Recently she has made the transition from oils to pastels and it is mostly in this more direct medium she attains her highly
finished expressions of South African labourers in work attire and within their working environments.
By treating the portraits of people who are sometimes being taken for granted with virtuous formality, Hugo presents them to
the viewer as individuals with reconsidered status. She reminds us of the significance of every job and the role it plays in a society and the economy and of the importance of work for survival and the elimination of poverty as well as for psychological well being.
In exploring that aspect of an individual’s identity which relates to his or her vocation, she acknowledges the significance of the unique skills necessary for- and the metamorphic ability of every job: “Catching any person in that moment of utmost
concentration or excruciating effort while working will show us a person who has, if only for an instant, become his or her work.”
Hugo’s realistic accuracy transcends conventional notions of realism not so much because of her technical ability, but
because her paintings and drawings of people somehow capture the essence of each particular subject and the very essence of what it is to be human.
In 2005 she entered the BP Portrait Awards and was selected as one of 50 artists to showcase their portraits in an exhibition which traveled from London to Scotland.
The painting she entered was a portrait of a South African gardener named Mbudzeni Netshithothole. This was to be her
first portrait of a South African worker and the start of something that would perhaps dominate the thematic content of her work for the rest of her life.
She has since exhibited her “working portraits” countrywide and portraits have been bought by corporate collectors
like Standard Chartered Bank - London, The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, Ukwazi Mining Industry
Consultants, Richard Spoor Attorney as well as private collectors around the world.
Hugo’s upcoming exhibition, ‘SA@Work’, will run from
2 June until 14 July at UJ Art Gallery c/o Kingsway and University Road, Auckland Park.
Contact Annali Cabano-Dempsey at 011 559 2099 for more information. Her work can also be viewed at www.art.co.za/helenahugo
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