Artists

Born Vancouver, Canada 1971: Currently lives and works Auckland, New Zealand

Sara Hughes has exhibited extensively since graduating with a Masters of Fine Arts, from Elam School of Fine Arts, in 2001. Her paintings and architectural scaled installations draw on the tradition of hard edge abstraction, reinterpreting its mode and method through contemporary culture and image making. Hughes' candy coloured compositions pulse with the heightened intensity of commercial graphics and display a continuing interest in optical perception. Utilizing precise geometric arrangements to reference information technologies, computer viruses and assorted electronic communication systems, she explores the role code and patterns play in the way we interpret and navigate the world in the digital age. Recent exhibitions such as Scales of Economy and Feedback Runaway have focused on mapping networks of wealth distribution, power structures and currency value by reflecting on a variety of economic transactions, from the stock exchange to the garage sale.

Hughes' practice has attracted significant critical attention, winning both the Wallace Art Award and the Norsewear Art Award in 2005. More recently, in 2008 the artist was the first New Zealand recipient of the The RIPE: Art and Australia/ANZ Private Bank Contemporary Art Award. Hughes has been selected to participate in a number of notable residencies, including the Francis Hodgkins Fellowship in 2003, the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York in 2007; she is currently undertaking the 2008/09 Creative New Zealand Berlin Visual Artists Residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Hughes' paintings and installations are held in many important Australasian public and private collections including the Chartwell Collection, Auckland City Art Gallery Toi o TÄmaki and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

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Sara HughesCV 2010 (PDF)