Hugo Lami

Hugo Lami (Coimbra, 1994) is a Portuguese artist whose project, based on sculpture, painting and installation, explores a poetic anxiety related to the future of the human species. Through an inherited melancholy of the past, references to mythological worlds merge with research into the contamination of both artificial and natural forms, hybridising life-like body parts with inanimate materials. A subversion of the purpose of the objects establishes unusual interactions with cultural, historical, environmental and economical systems. These connections are demonstrated as heterogeneous and conflictual systems within an unpredictable becoming in a dialectical relationship to the world.

The line between the real and the fictional is continuously blurred. The articulation between the silicones, the resins, the plasters, the ceramics and the fortuitous encounters with objects that question our relation with the products we use, produce humorous narratives across the work. These narratives reveal hidden and unexpected relations between time and value. Myth, and clichéd sayings play an essential role in this process, and their stories provide the connections between materials and symbolism.

Through the use of biotic, abiotic, mineral, vegetal, animal, and man-made, abstract entities and real inhabitants, a parallel world come to life. This fluidity embodies ideas of mutation, adaptation and hostility, that can be associated to economical processes. It is about the physical and cultural survival of one, in a world dominated by invisible systems that threaten the essence of the idea of freedom.

The artificial nature of the cult is equivalent to the relationship we build with our technologies and social media. The corrupted utopia of the idyllic body (‘Mens sana in corpore sano’) is swallowed by technological advancement, Capitalism and consumption leading us to be hedonists.

In the end, who doesn’t want to have fun?