Sarah Patricia Hughes

Bio

Sarah Hughes is an interdisciplinary artist having completed her Bachelor's degree at the University of Guelph and selected study abroad in Paris, France. Hughes is a recent graduate from the University of Ottawa and presently lives and works in Guelph, Ontario. Hughes equates her practice to her early childhood spent in the ever changing forest behind her family home. Themes of life cycles, energy transfer, control and lack of control both fuel her curiosity and body of work. Trained as an oil painter, Hughes returned to a foundational drawing practice to explore the rhizomatic interconnectivity between material, process, people, space and time.

Artist Statement

Sarah Hughes considers her work as an extension of herself, using it as a means to explore her connection with her materials and her process. Hughes sculptural drawings show her physical engagement and trace the imprint of her thoughts, doubts, confidence and choices. After months of layering materials, Hughes creates these delicate sculptural drawings. Although they may appear in instances to be rusted metal, they are in fact made of paper and dust. She kept reshaping them as they changed over time; the wet material was soft and easy to tear, adding unpredictability to her process. Hughes work is ephemeral in nature and site sensitive as she continues to explore exhibiting indoors and outdoors. To Hughes the works are very much alive as she seeks to activate the exhibition space and integrate the viewer.