HUGO MCCLOUD / this is now

Hugo McCloud (b. 1980, Palo Alto, CA) recontextualizes common objects and materials through a diverse practice that foregrounds process, social economics, and beauty. A self-taught artist with a background in industrial design, McCloud has created paintings using materials such as plastic bags, liquid tar, and roofing paper, often marked with elaborate floral patterns. These materials reflect his background as biracial and from a working-class family, while the imagery frequently suggests personal and cultural histories. While his early work leaned toward abstraction, McCloud’s later work has become increasingly figurative, depicting laborers carrying towering loads, overfilled carts, or simplified floral arrangements.

McCloud has developed a signature technique centered on the manipulation of commercial single-use shopping bags, layering and melting them into texturally rich swaths of primary color. Observing the lifecycle of these ubiquitous materials within economies of goods and labor, his work considers how objects circulate across social strata. His flower paintings reference traditional still lifes, reflecting temporality and seasonal change, while another body of work focuses on fruit cart umbrellas—common throughout urban neighborhoods—that operate as symbols of both labor and hope. Through the use of non-biodegradable plastic to conjure natural forms, McCloud’s work invites reflection on the contradictions between industrialization and the natural world.