Anna Hughes
United Kingdom
A graduate of Goldsmiths College, University of London and currently undertaking postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy. Anna Hughes describes her work as an uncomfortable mix of scepticism and hope. A questioning dialogue which examines surrounding physical manifestations of the spiritual within images, objects, materials and architectural spaces. Currently working with sculptural arrangements of paintings, printed images, found materials and objects Hughes assembles these collected materials in consideration of a particular space to choreograph an environment. Drawn to the materials of D.I.Y interior design- both natural and imitation, that seem to tempt a kind of seduction in their suggested potential for transformation. Combining these with paintings and painted surfaces, she seeks to evoke a particular tension or presence such as described in novels when a description of the weather upon a landscape sets the mood as a pretext to narrative. The use of the fluidity of oil- thickened paint to create a background landscape in flux, provides equivalents to metaphysical and psychological states such as groundlessness, temporality or silent music. Carefully positioned objects such as a found twig or a simple shape made from clay into these arrangements act to propose a hopeful elevation of these objects into ritualistic talismen. These either rest upon other elements obtusely or support them practically in some way, aiding a sense of hopefulness and intimacy embedded within these specially chosen objects.
