Overview
Entering a room of Patrick Hughes' reverse perspective paintings is an overwhelming experience. Horizons thrust themselves forward. Vanishing points jut out when they should recede. It is visual anarchy. All the normal rules of perception are broken and our senses are reeling. We are alone, striving to make sense of all this. Just exactly what is going on?
The artist Patrick Hughes has been making work of extraordinary diversity over the past forty years, confounding the expectations of his audience, by turns delighting and intriguing [] it is the sheer impact of standing before his vertiginous large paintings, experiencing these bewildering sensations that reminds us that his is a unique vision in the world of contemporary art.
Glen Baxter
Patrick Hughes' three-dimensional images challenge perceptions of reality. They raise and illuminate puzzling questions about the nature of art and representation. Just as the Cubism of Picasso and Braque aimed 'to get rid of trompe l'oeil and to find a trompe l'esprit, Hughes questions the workings of the mind and the habitual certainties of the viewer. The techniques of reverse perspective present the world the 'wrong' way round; the viewer is forced to see the picture as going in where it protrudes and vice versa. Closer inspection reveals the mechanics of the illusion; yet even with this in mind the viewer's eyes cannot stop the visual magic from working. The fascination in this work lies in the revelation that the mind cannot necessarily seewhat it 'knows' to be true.
Patrick Hughes lives and works in London. His work is included in a range if important public collections including the British Library, the Tate Gallery, London, the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, The Denver Art Museum and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, North Carolina. He has had over 100 solo exhibitions world-wide.
