‘Abstract’ is a blanket term that gets thrown around quite a lot in the art world. It can describe any artwork whose subject matter has been abstracted, meaning: the artist began with forms, ideas, and figures that already exist and then warped them (think: Picasso’s plethora of strange faces and bodies). But what is it about this genre of art that inspires such strong remarks? Annoyance, awe, frustration, offense… none of these are unusual responses to abstract work. Maybe we feel excluded when we see something that appears mysterious—like we aren’t in on the joke—but it is easy to forget that getting lost in something can actually be a lot of fun. Hector Del Campo’s show, Escape Into Memories, is a welcome reminder of just how fun and enlightening the world of abstract artwork can be.

*Home Plate*
enamel & acrylic ink with graphite on watercolor paper mounted to canvas
36” x 24”

Escape Into Memories features saturated colors, textual elements, and obsessive scribbles, all of which come together in a very composed, almost musical way. Del Campo’s version of reality is distorted, vibrant, cerebral; in a word, hyperreal. It is easy to draw a comparison here to our own memories, always teetering between the truth and something else, as we recall moments over and over again from our past, each time just a bit more faded and perhaps a little more exaggerated. ‘Cuba’ is repeated in the piece titled Mi Sangre. Del Campo is Cuban-American, and he writes the name of his country like a fixation—as if he is ruminating on a single thought over and over.

*Mi Sangre*
spray paints & sharpie on found paper mounted on canvas
24” x 18"

There’s something similarly obsessive about work like Tilde, whose green dots are repeated across the canvas. Each oval is just oblong enough to inspire thoughts of biology, like we’re looking through the lens of a microscope. Cov I.D. is a bit more literal in this regard, its title giving way to the viral-like forms littered throughout.

*cov I.D.*
acrylic ink & enamel paint with rubber bands on canvas
24” x 24”

The show is calming in its hypnotic nature, and its repeated forms are soothing, almost like mantras. The different pieces seem to glow through the canvas. The soft, swooping figures, like the ones that can be seen behind bars in the piece Mirando por la ventana are repeated elsewhere in the collection—another rhythm that ties the show together.

*Mirando por la ventana*
enamel & acrylic ink with graphite on watercolor paper mounted to canvas
24” x 36”

Certainty is overrated. At least—as far as art goes. Artists are often not concerned with telling straightforward stories; more so, they are interested in evoking sensation and awakening alternative ways of experiencing the world. Hector Del Campo succeeds here, at least, for me, sending me dizzyingly into my own thoughts and down the rabbit hole of memory: a welcome escape.

See Escape Into Memory in the Harrison Center’s Gallery Annex through the month of May.