The painting Uma ideia clara, 2002, by Hugo Canoilas is highlighted as it is part of 74 x Caldas = A clear idea? – From the Caixa Geral de Depósitos Collection, an exhibition collectively curated by the 2023/24 class of Cultural Programming and Production at Escola Superior de Artes e Design, Caldas da Rainha, and Lígia Afonso. The exhibition will be open at Centro de Artes in Caldas da Rainha – Museu Leopoldo de Almeida, Atelier-Museu António Duarte and Espaço Concas –, and at the Biblioteca ESAD.CR, between November 28, 2024, and March 3, 2025.

Hugo Canoilas' work journeys the realms of sculpture, photography, video, installation, and performance in ways that may be construed as painting in the expanded field. In the beginning his artistic work focused on pictorial issues and formal content that he turned into disturbing and questionable paintings, one of which is Uma ideia clara. A white monochromatic rectangle rests gently, with a slight slant, on the unprimed canvas. This misalignment between painted surface and canvas, becomes an interrogation on painting and its relevance in a society immersed in photographic images and digital abstractions. In this sense, the uneven painting questions its own history and its various ramifications, namely Kazimir Malevich's Russian Suprematism, or Marcel Duchamp's Dadaism. By going back on its own history, this painting remakes itself and becomes present. “Remaking implies an acute sense of time and the gap between what is done and what was once accomplished.” (Delfim Sardo). Minimizing the pictorial gesture, a white rectangle on a neutral background, also sets a challenge to its perception. The viewer is practically coerced to react and interpret what he sees. This forced interface is an invitation to the beholder to rethink his look as “the works seem to be freely and unconditionally available to everyone.” (Nuno Crespo). “More than what it looks like, art is (...) what you can do with it.” (Hugo Canoilas). This is exactly where the political act resides, everybody always sees something different and something new, as if “the look is replaced by a body-based insight thus affording a multisensory experience.” (Miguel Amado).

Hugo Canoilas was born in Lisbon in 1977. He currently lives in Vienna, Austria. He graduated in Visual Arts Studies from Escola Superior de Arte e Design, Caldas da Rainha and completed his master's degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London, under a scholarship from the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. He participated in various individual and group exhibitions, such as: Centro das Artes Visuais, Coimbra and Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, in 2022; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 2021; Museu de Serralves, Porto, 2020; Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar and Galeria ZDB, Lisbon, 2019. He also participated in the 30th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil, in 2012.

Hugo Dinis