Shara Hughes

Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-based artist Shara Hughes (b.1981) is best known for her vibrant palette andvivacious brushstrokes. Her dream-like perspectives ignore the conventions of landscape art and are firmlyrooted in her imagined and psychological take on nature.

Working without reference images, Hughes builds her fantastical panoramas by layering and mixing pigment directly atop her canvases in a variety of strokes, dabs, and sprays. Taking inspiration from the lush realms ofPaul Gaugin and David Hockney, her kaleidoscopic colour schemes’ escapist feel beckons the viewer butkeeps them at arm’s length through crowded composition.

Hughes’s work has been exhibited in a plethora of notable institutions, including the FLAG Art Foundation,New York (2022); the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2021); the Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2021); the GardenMuseum, London (2021). Her work belongs to many prominent museum collections, including the DallasMuseum of Art; the MET, New York; the X Museum, Beijing; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum,Washington DC.

Now It’s Heated, 2020
Oil and acrylic on canvas
173 x 153 cm

On display in the Library, first floor.