“As colourful forms morph into one another, an effect that echoes her improvisational and playful process and is reinforced by her collage-like combination of materials and techniques, including oil paint, dye, airbrushing and enamels… The childlike quality of the mark-making underscores the sense of youthful imagination and spontaneity that Hughes achieves; yet, as in so much of her work, there is also the sense of something terrifying emerging from the anxious brushstrokes”
S hara Hughes’ Tipsy (2016) is a superlative example of the artist’s vivacious imagined landscapes, radiating warmth and scorching with saturated colour. Wanting to remove the narrative from her once heavily symbolic work, Hughes turned towards painting landscapes in around 2015. Significantly, Hughes’ landscapes derive purely from her imagination, rather than from an image or a remembered place. In this way, her coveted landscape works such as Tipsy are imbued with a sense of both the familiar and the unfamiliar, characterised by an otherworldly quality. It is the unexpected nature of the work that is so fascinating to the viewer, challenging the preconceived notions of what a landscape should be. Discussing the appeal of landscapes to her as an artist, Hughes revealed: “the landscape is so seemingly simple. Everyone knows what a landscape looks like—there is an entire tradition of painting that informs our expectations. I wondered how I could take something that is seemingly so known and make it mine, while still getting all the satisfaction of painting, and the history of painting, in one” (the artist quoted in Katie White, “‘Landscapes Opened a Whole New World for Me’”: Artist Shara Hughes on How She Subverts the Tradition of Flower Painting”, Artnet, 17 August 2020).
“As spectators, we are invited to dwell in these life-sized portraits of idiosyncratic paradisiacal clusters, where caustic primaries clash with milky pastels and swirly clouds dance above dewy ferns. Framed as both a window and a mirror (distant yet familiar), Hughes’ paintings present encounters with the natural world as intangible and rote, with no need for further explanation”
Hughes is expert in her ability to meld different references from art history, informing each of her hypnotic, otherworldly landscapes. While her outlandish palette is reminiscent of the highly saturated colours of the Fauves such as Henri Matisse, and the vibrant works of David Hockney, her biomorphic forms recall the works of the Surrealists, and her decorative framing devices reveal an indebtedness to the Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. In his review of Hughes’ works, the painter and writer Jason Stopa compellingly compared the framing devices of Hughes and Klimt, stating: “When Klimt went on his plein air painting expeditions, he would often use a telescope or “viewing frame,” both tools with the capacity of presenting a detail as a totality. Similarly, this central form acts as pair of binoculars [in Hughes’ work], ones that peer beyond the world of given appearances” (Jason Stopa, “Tripping Out: The Upended Landscapes of Shara Hughes”, Hyperallergic, 5 March 2016). In Tipsy, the curving tree at the fore of the image bends around the yolk-like sun, serving as a framing device for the sunset or sunrise within, highlighting the sumptuous detail of her warm pigments and shifting textures that capture the light’s reflection on what we imagine to be a calm body of water. Further, the tree swirls drunkenly down and around the tangerine sun in a manner that recalls the drooping, globular forms of the famous Spanish Surrealist, Salvador Dalí, reinforcing the strange yet wonderful quality of Hughes imaginary landscapes that transport the viewer to another world.
Shara Hughes’ landscape and flower series have enchanted international audiences with their brilliant colour palettes and whimsical, somet.mes
s menacing subject-matter. Born in 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia, Hughes attained her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design before going on to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine in 2011. Since then, Hughes has attracted the attention of the international art world, and has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2017, the artist was honoured with a dedicated room for her kaleidoscopic landscapes at the Whitney Biennial, which was met with rave reviews. This year, Shara Hughes: The Bridge at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai marked the first solo exhibition for the artist in Mainland China, and a body of Hughes’ works are scheduled to be exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Luzern in Lucerne Switzerland (17 September to 20 November 2022), an exciting tribute to the artist. Today, her works can be found in a multitude of important cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Rachofsky collects
ion, Dallas; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington; and the Whitney Museum of Art, New York.
「隨著繽紛的色塊變幻交織，作品營造出趣味盎然的效果，呼應休斯即興俏皮的創作過程，油彩、染料、噴彩和瓷釉等不同的材質巧妙地組合在一起，如同拼貼藝術……休斯的痕跡創作充滿童趣，展現了她古靈精怪的想像力和信手拈來的創作力，然而，如同藝術家許多其他作品一樣，緊湊急促的筆觸亦隱隱滲透出可怖感。」
莎 拉・休斯以絢爛靈動的風景作品聞名，《醉醺醺》（2016年）可謂當中的優秀範例，飽和濃厚的色調予人溫暖之感。休斯早期的作品被認為象徵意味強烈，為了消除作品中的敘述聲音，她另闢蹊徑，大約於2015年轉向繪畫風景。值得注意的是，休斯的畫筆之下的風景全然源於她的想像，而非依據圖像或記憶。故此，她那些迷人的風景作品，如在《微醺》中所見，予人熟悉卻又陌生的感覺，並且具有超脫凡塵的特質。正因如此，她的作品總是挑戰人們對「風景」的既有認知，令觀者深深為之著迷。休斯曾談及風景畫對於她的意涵，她表示：「表面看去，風景主題十分簡單。風景畫的傳統由來已久，作例豐富，畫中元素可謂無人不識。我在想，怎樣才能在人們如此熟悉的主題中汲取靈感、將它變成自己的風格，既能在過程中不失去創作的成就感，又能將風景畫傳統融匯其中。」（引述自莎拉‧休斯，凱蒂‧懷特撰，〈風景為我打開新世界：藝術家莎拉‧休斯談花卉繪畫傳統之顛覆〉，載於《Artnet》，2020年8月17日）
「畫中景物，皆如實物大小，邀請觀者徜徉於其中幽遠迷離的意境，放眼望去，鮮豔喧囂的原色與柔和寧靜的粉色調相匯碰撞，曉蕨滴露，輕雲旋舞。休斯的繪畫既是窗，也是鏡，引領觀者通往自然世界，那裡讓人覺得遙遠而熟悉，有一種難以言喻，卻可以心領神會的特質，無需多作解釋。」
休斯善於旁徵博引，將藝術史中不同的典故融匯在她的風景作品中，使之更耐人尋味。她在用色方面別樹一格，好用高飽和度色彩，令人聯想起以亨利‧馬蒂斯為代表的野獸主義，以及大衛‧霍克尼鮮豔明亮的作品，與此同時，她筆下的生物形態，則帶有超現實主義的色彩，而她的裝飾取景框架技巧，則借鑒了奧地利象徵主義畫家古斯塔夫‧克林姆。畫家兼作家傑森‧斯托帕曾評論莎拉‧休斯的作品，文中他比較了休斯與克林姆的取景技巧，指出：「當克林姆考察如何在日光下作畫時，他經常會使用望遠鏡或『觀察框』，兩者都能夠將一處細節化為整體。同樣，（休斯作品）中心的物象亦有如雙目鏡般，用以透視世間表象。」（傑森‧斯托帕撰，〈迷幻：莎拉‧休斯顛倒失次的風景〉，載於《Hyperallergic》，2016年3月5日）在《醉醺醺》中，畫面前方的卷枝重重圍繞着蛋黃般的太陽，藝術家以卷枝為取景框架，觀照日出日落，而溫暖的色調和層次豐富的紋理細膩地捕捉了折射水波之上的光芒。另外，圓轉的樹冠與橘紅色的太陽，使人聯想起西班牙超現實主義藝術家沙華多‧達利作品中下垂的球狀，令休斯畫筆之下的虛構風景更顯奇妙，彷彿能夠帶領觀者遁入桃源。
莎拉‧休斯的風景和花卉系列作品色彩絢麗，題材稀奇奧妙、時而詭秘莫測，深得各地觀者喜愛。休斯在1981年出生於喬治亞州亞特蘭大，於羅德島設計學院取得藝術文學士學位後，2011年入讀位於緬因州麥迪遜的斯科希甘繪畫及雕塑學院。自此，休斯在國際藝壇嶄露頭角，參與多場個展及群展。2017年，惠特尼雙年展為她專設展廳，展示其千變萬化的自然景觀，展覽好評如潮。今年，上海余德耀美術館舉辦《莎拉‧休斯：橋》，是休斯在中國大陸的首場個展，而瑞士盧塞恩美術館亦將展出休斯的作品（2022年9月17日至11月20日），藉以向她致敬。現時，休斯的作品為各大重要文化機構收藏，包括紐約大都會藝術博物館、達拉斯的拉喬夫斯基私人收藏館、華盛頓史密森尼美國藝術博物館，以及紐約惠特尼美國藝術博物館。