2017 Catalogue Archive

Situated between representation and abstraction, the paintings of Shara Hughes open onto colorful visions, hallucinatory landscapes, and Matisse-like interior settings. Hughes layers divergent styles by nesting different imagery within the picture plane, in this case the cliffs that border the sunset act as a framing device for the bolder, abstract scene centered around the blue river. She transforms the crags of the cliff sides into cascading patterns, evoking the early abstract landscapes of Wassily Kandinsky and Gustav Klimt. Hughes lives in Brooklyn, and her surreal paintings have been included in numerous exhibitions, most recently in the 2017 Whitney Biennial.