Brutal Beauty
Drawings by Hugo Crosthwaite
27 February - 18 July 2010
San Diego Museum of Art, Balboa Park, San Diego, California, USA
San Diego Museum of Art, Balboa Park, San Diego, California, USA
A Tail for Two Cities: Part I (10:01) Part II (9:22)
Artist Interview Time Lapse Advertisement (Spanish)
Exhibition Press >
Born in Tijuana, Mexico in 1971, Hugo Crosthwaite spent his childhood in nearby Rosarito. At a young age, he taught himself to draw after studying the black and white reproductions in books owned by his father such as The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. This formative experience led to a fascination with black and white compositions.
Crosthwaite received a B.A. in 1997 from San Diego State University. Though Crosthwaite currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, the influence of the Mexico-California border region lingers in his work. Filled with diverse and hybrid cultures, his work represents a synthesis of the art historical canon and contemporary human experience. He explores the immediacy of drawing, while simultaneously demonstrating a keen eye for detail. While Crosthwaite has depicted cityscapes of Tijuana through numerous drawings, this exhibition focuses on his rendering of the figure. Working primarily with charcoal and graphite, he melds the fragility of humanity with through references to popular culture, daily life, and recent history such as the events of September 11 and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. His figures exude a brutal beauty: they are as awe-inspiring for their physical forms as they are for their dramatic sensibilities that suggest baroque, surreal, and film noir influences.
This exhibition is a testament to the powerful work being created by Crosthwaite, an artist with local origins. During the course of the exhibition Crosthwaite will create a new work that will complete this installation and will become a part of the Museum's permanent collection.
- Curated by Amy Galpin, Project Curator for American Art
Artist Interview Time Lapse Advertisement (Spanish)
Exhibition Press >
Born in Tijuana, Mexico in 1971, Hugo Crosthwaite spent his childhood in nearby Rosarito. At a young age, he taught himself to draw after studying the black and white reproductions in books owned by his father such as The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. This formative experience led to a fascination with black and white compositions.
Crosthwaite received a B.A. in 1997 from San Diego State University. Though Crosthwaite currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, the influence of the Mexico-California border region lingers in his work. Filled with diverse and hybrid cultures, his work represents a synthesis of the art historical canon and contemporary human experience. He explores the immediacy of drawing, while simultaneously demonstrating a keen eye for detail. While Crosthwaite has depicted cityscapes of Tijuana through numerous drawings, this exhibition focuses on his rendering of the figure. Working primarily with charcoal and graphite, he melds the fragility of humanity with through references to popular culture, daily life, and recent history such as the events of September 11 and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. His figures exude a brutal beauty: they are as awe-inspiring for their physical forms as they are for their dramatic sensibilities that suggest baroque, surreal, and film noir influences.
This exhibition is a testament to the powerful work being created by Crosthwaite, an artist with local origins. During the course of the exhibition Crosthwaite will create a new work that will complete this installation and will become a part of the Museum's permanent collection.
- Curated by Amy Galpin, Project Curator for American Art
Covered Woman, 2001
graphite and charcoal on wood panel
96 x 48 inches
Collection, San Diego Museum of Art
graphite and charcoal on wood panel
96 x 48 inches
Collection, San Diego Museum of Art
Crosthwaite writes, "In my depiction of figures, I am dedicated to using classical technique, minute in detail. The absence of color allows each work to be viewed as an objective documentation of events from which the spectator's involvement is forbidden. It is not my objective to create compositions to which viewers can relate. It is my intent to create works that maintain their mysteriousness in spite of their classical figurative representation."
In Covered Woman, the enigmatic figure's billowy dress and exaggerated form, along with the contrast of her white shape that emerges from a dark background are signs of a contemporary baroque style. Crosthwaite synthesizes the power of dramatic contrasting elements and the distortion of form to develop his practice with roots in the art historical tradition.
In Covered Woman, the enigmatic figure's billowy dress and exaggerated form, along with the contrast of her white shape that emerges from a dark background are signs of a contemporary baroque style. Crosthwaite synthesizes the power of dramatic contrasting elements and the distortion of form to develop his practice with roots in the art historical tradition.