No Rules: A Conversation with Hugo Anderson
Five Decades of Painting, Experimentation, and Abstraction
For more than five decades, Hugo Anderson has built a life around making art. His path began in 1968, when a visit to a Matisse retrospective in Paris changed the direction of his life from law or business to painting. Since then, his work has evolved from photorealistic landscapes to found-object sculpture and richly layered abstractions—work rooted in ideas, places, and memories, then transformed through what Hugo describes as “the filter of time and process.”
Now living and working in New London, Hugo continues to approach the studio with the curiosity and freedom that have sustained his practice for more than 50 years. For Pure Form, he is exhibiting Two Gray Hills, a painting inspired by his memory of a Navajo blanket design from his childhood in New Mexico. In this conversation, Hugo reflects on abstraction, experimentation, the creative value of mistakes, and the simple joy that keeps him returning to the studio: “I love to paint.”
Q: Please begin by sharing your hometown (where you grew up) and where you live and work today.
A: I was born in Chicago in 1946, grew up in New Mexico, and now live and work in New London, New Hampshire.
Q: Tell us a little about yourself and your artistic journey. What first led you to become an artist, and how has your work evolved over the years?
A: On my way home from the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, West Africa, I stopped in Paris in 1968 to see the Matisse retrospective. Three hours that changed my life, from law or business to art.
Q: Pure Form celebrates abstract and non-objective art and the freedom it gives artists to work outside the boundaries of literal representation. What does abstraction mean to you?
A: No rules.
Q: Your work has moved between the figure, landscape, sculpture, collage, found objects, stencils, language, and abstraction. What led you away from more representational work and toward the visual language you use today?
A: Realism was how I learned to draw and paint as I taught myself over 10 years: first drawing and then painting. My early landscapes were photorealistic, which eventually became constraining. After 15 years, I went to graduate school for my MFA, which I did in found-object sculpture as a change of pace. That work began in 1984, while I was living in New York City and bringing home objects left on the street. Those objects eventually evolved into sculptures of people living on the street. After graduate school, I returned to painting and began incorporating found materials into them.
Q: When you begin an abstract work, where does it start? Is there an idea, image, emotion, color, shape, gesture—or do you discover the work through the process of making it?
A: All of my work has always begun with an idea, a place, or a memory; they are rooted in the real world—abstracted through the filter of time and process.
“All of my work has always begun with an idea, a place, or a memory.”
Q: Can you tell us the story behind the piece or pieces you are exhibiting in Pure Form? Where did they begin, and how did they evolve?
A: “Two Gray Hills” is a memory of a Navajo blanket design I remembered from growing up in New Mexico, painted 40 years later.
Q: How do you know when an abstract work is finished? Is there a moment when the composition resolves itself, or is knowing when to stop more intuitive?
A: Knowing when to stop is always an issue. It is done when you quit painting on it and still like it.
Q: Abstraction asks the viewer to participate differently than representational art does. How much do you want the viewer to understand your original intention, and how much do you want them to bring their own interpretation to the work?
A: I always try to leave a window open to the viewer, to bring their experience to the piece.
“In some ways, I feel that Nature is my church and my paintings are hymns of praise.”
Q: Your work frequently incorporates marks, fragments of letters, stencils, collage, and other visual elements that can suggest language without necessarily communicating something literal. What role does language play in your work?
A: Art is a language that we learn over time. Language can also be a reference to civilization, culture, and history in my landscapes. For me, it has evolved in mark-making and the development of a style.
Q: How important are experimentation, accident, and surprise in your process? Have mistakes or unexpected discoveries ever taken a piece somewhere you hadn’t intended it to go?
A: Leaving the door open to chance and invention is significant for me—it is how creation remains fresh.
Q: After more than five decades of making art, how has your relationship with experimentation changed? Is it easier now to take creative risks, or does experience create its own set of challenges?
A: I no longer see things as risks, just process. If I do something I don’t like, then I can change it. There are no “mistakes”; they are just layers of an ever-richer image. I have been known to deliberately do things to paintings in order to create new problems to solve. “There are no ‘mistakes’; they are just layers of an ever-richer image.”
Q: What do you think people sometimes misunderstand about abstract art—particularly the idea that abstraction is somehow easier than representational work because it doesn’t have to “look like” something?
A: If they think it is easier, they should try it. Realistic or abstract, a painting needs to have its own voice.
Q: What do you hope someone experiences when standing in front of one of your paintings? Do you want the work to provoke a particular emotion or response, or is the viewer’s individual experience ultimately more important?
A: I paint what is important to me, knowing it will resonate with some viewers. In some ways, I feel that Nature is my church and my paintings are hymns of praise.
Q: How has living and working in New Hampshire influenced your work? Does the landscape or character of this region find its way into your abstract work even when it isn’t explicitly represented?
A: After nine years, New England has become part of me and my work; it takes time to adjust to a new place. I grew up with very few trees, and now there are many.
Q: Which artists, movements, or ideas have had the greatest influence on the way you think about abstraction and art-making?
A: Matisse and Picasso for their energy, creativity, and longevity. Art is a career, built upon many works which combine to create a whole. My hope is to create some sense out of it all.
Q: Pure Form includes both experienced abstract artists and CFA members who may be experimenting with abstraction for the first time. What advice would you give an artist trying to move beyond representation and develop a visual language of their own?
A: There are no rules. Be free to play, but with a mind to the bigger story your work could create.
Q: The Center for the Arts exists in part to connect artists with audiences and with one another. What role do local and regional arts organizations like CFA play in sustaining artists and creative communities?
A: To encourage people to look at, create, and collect art.
Q: After a lifetime of making art, what still excites or challenges you when you begin a new work?
A: Each painting is both new and part of a bigger picture. Each work is a challenge in itself, but it also needs to connect to everything that came before it and contribute to the larger story of my work.
Q: Finally, after more than five decades of painting, what keeps you making art? What keeps you returning to the studio?
A: I love to paint. Creating new things is a joy. I have enjoyed going to work every day for 50-plus years; it has been the rich life that I saw walking through that Matisse show in Paris in 1968.
See Hugo Anderson’s Work in Pure Form
Pure Form: Abstract Expression
Opening Reception: Friday, September 4 | 5:00–7:00 PM
Exhibition Dates: September 4–October 24, 2026
Center for the Arts Member Gallery: 428 Main Street, New London, NH 03257
Free and open to the public.
