James Hugonin

James Hugonin cares about the quality of light and the articulation of colour. In his work he is concerned with the complexities of rhythm and pattern. In order to achieve a harmonious effect between the two, he utilises a grid form, which he believes gives him a structure to work both with and against. In Northumberland, where the artist lives and works, the sheer luminous quality of the light is constantly shifting; it accentuates different aspects of the surrounding landscape which provides a continuous source of inspiration to the artist…
Hugonin explains:
What I am trying to do is present the evanescence of things, to heighten the fact that everything is in essence transitory. What I am working towards is an over-all shimmer on the surface, I want the painting to attain a quality as of shifting light. (1)
The critic Mel Gooding has compared Hugonin's use of light to the effect of a stained glass window, 'the "minute articulations" of pure colour in an Hugonin painting coalesce into a single radiance..' (2)
The artist explains his delicate and sensitive approach to repetition of colour and the manipulation of light in his work which:
Contain(s) very many minute articulations of colour, which are developed over a long period of time, but they are all working towards a stillness that contains within it innumerable minute changes… In working, I find that I am always acutely aware of things being balanced in a tenuous way, like something that is lightly held, or poised. Getting the painting to work that was necessitates many repeated patterns of marks, small units of colour building up to a finite structure. (3)
He makes lucid connections between listening to music and his use of colour when he refers to a richness in modulation of his work
What pleasure do you get out of listening to a work of Bach, for instance? All it is, when you actually analyse it, is a series of repeated notes, but the pleasure you get from those repetitions, (and also I would say, from colour modulated in a particular way) is enormous…It is the structure which creates the space that allows the listener to lose himself in the music. This, I believe, is equally applicable in painting.

1.    Interview with Mel Gooding, James Hugonin (Serpentine Gallery, London. March- April 1991), no pagination
2.    Op. cit.
3.    Op. cit.
4.    Op. cit.