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David Hugo

Born: Nottingham, 1958. Died: Edinburgh, 2013.

Studied at Trent Polytechnic (1976-77), Wolverhampton Polytechnic, B.A. (1977-80), Royal College of Art, M.A. (1981-84).

In 1987 Hugo had a studio in the Delfina Studio Trust in Stratford, East London where he amassed a large collection of discarded industrial machinery, electrical components and other materials salvaged from skips from which he used in his sculptures. He also worked as a studio assistant for Eduardo Poalozzi who was an important influence on his work.

Hugo’s first exhibitions were in Wolverhampton in 1978 and at the IKON Gallery in Birmingham in 1980. He continued to show regularly in group and solo exhibitions throughout the 1980s and 1990s mainly in the UK but also at overseas venues in Munich (1983), Copenhagen (1991) and Madrid (1993).

Much of his output was in the form of commissions for corporate and other organisations, usually large, wall-mounted works he called ‘constructed paintings’ which combined painted panels with three-dimensional elements. Although brightly contemporary and appropriately themed to suit the organisations’ activities, inspiration for these came from ancient Egyptian and Mayan wall reliefs which Hugo had studied. Clients included the architects Edward Cullinan for a National Conference Centre in High Wycombe, Gatwick Airport for the Norfolk House building, British Airports Authority for two works at the World Cargo Centre at Heathrow Airport, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London, Templeton College, Oxford, London Transport HQ, London, and De la Rue plc, London.

In 2004 he took up a post as model maker in the Architecture School at the Edinburgh School of Art until his untimely death in 2013.

Sensedatum Hour Glass II
Golden Shifts No.3