Ana Mercedes Hoyos:Los Fragmentos

Huxley-Parlour are delighted to be working with the Ana Mercedes Hoyos estate to host the first UK exhibition of the pioneering Colombian artist opening this December. The exhibition will focus on Hoyos’ still-lifes, presenting 12 works on canvas made between 1988 and 2010, that illustrate the artist’s preoccupation with expanding the genre beyond European art-historical traditions. 

The artist used the term ‘naturaleza viva’, a play on the spanish term for still-life (‘naturaleza muerta’), to describe her works. Rather than frozen moments, Hoyos viewed them as paintings full of movement and action, both past and future: the fruits appear neatly sliced, markers of previous consumption, while in many of the canvases the knife lies poised in the bowl, ready to make another cut. Though fragmented into rough geometric forms and vibrant planes of colour, Hoyos suggests a ripe fullness and monumentality in her work. Contrasting the painting’s brightness with their robust physicality, Hoyos conveys the vitality of her compositions and the peoples and cultures they depict.

Los Fragmentos is testament to Hoyos’ enduring innovation and influence as one of Colombia’s most pre-eminent artists, as revealed through her re-invention of the still-life.