Shara Hughes - Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session New York Wednesday, May 15, 2024 | Phillips

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  • In Shara Hughes’ Magic Hour, 2016, the artist creates a series of frames within the canvas, akin to Russian nesting dolls, each one leading the eye further into the work and acting as portals into increasingly abstract spaces. Operating between abstraction and representation, the present example exemplifies the artist’s practice of “painting intuitively from her subconscious.”i In the foreground, Hughes constructs a frame out of twinned symmetrical trees. A layer deeper, a border of kaleidoscopic colors frames a striated band reminiscent of curving blades of grass. The scene within takes up the largest portion of the canvas: a vibrant mountain rage with expressionistic strokes bisected by a molten river. This image is itself a frame for a portrait-like silhouette filled with mysterious cloudy skies and a wave-filled body of water, suggesting an inner, imaginative reality. 

    “I want to live inside them.”
    —Shara Hughes

    Hughes began painting her psychedelic landscapes in 2014. Previously, she had painted interiors with representations of real objects from her life. The transition represented the introduction of the unconscious mind into her work. Mia Locks reflected on the artist’s improvisatory method: “she starts by making aimless marks on a blank canvas, without any preconceived notion of what they will become. Pouring, splashing, spraying, dripping, churning, or scraping-there are innumerable physical actions Hughes might use as she negotiates form through paint. Her initial mindset is open; she lets herself play.”ii Her use of materials—oil, acrylic, spray paint and dye—blend to create a dazzling energy. The artist’s spirit of play imbues the work with a vivacity that recalls the Fauvists and her use of warm yellow light evokes the Post-Impressionism of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cézanne. Hughes’ flamboyant works abound with creative energy and offer insight into the potentials of imagination. 

     

    i “Shara Hughes: Compelling landscapes of nowhere,” Two Coats of Paint, October 4, 2023, online.

    ii Mia Locks, “Working Tension: On Shara Hughes’s Landscapes,” Shara Hughes / Landscapes, New York, 2019, p. 9. 

    • Condition Report

    • Description

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    • Provenance

      Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York
      Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2016

    • Artist Biography

      Shara Hughes

      Shara Hughes (b. 1981) earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and later attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. 

      The artist is best known for her colorful landscapes which bridge a gap between the real and the imagined, and the beautiful and the chaotic. Working intuitively, the artist does not typically pre-plan her canvases. Rather her process involves giving form and shape to her previously applied brushstrokes and reacting to her last applications of paint and color through more painting. 

      Hughes has participated in numerous group exhibitions, at venues such as FLAG Art Foundation, NY (2023); ICA Miami (2022); De la Cruz Collection (2022); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (2021); Dallas Art Museum, Dallas (2019); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2018); and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (2015). The artist was also included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Hughes’ work belongs to many prominent museum collections including the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; the Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; the Jorge M. Perez Collection, Miami, FL; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta, GA; the M Woods Museum, Beijing, China; the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; the Rachofsky Collection, Dallas, TX; the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; the Si Shang Art Museum, Beijing, China; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY; among others. Hughes lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

       
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328

Magic Hour

signed, titled, inscribed and dated ""Magic Hour" Shara Hughes NYC 2016" on the reverse
oil, acrylic, spray paint and dye on canvas
60 x 52 in. (152.4 x 132.1 cm)
Executed in 2016.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$180,000 - 250,000 

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Contact Specialist

Patrizia Koenig
Specialist, Head of Sale, Afternoon Session
+1 212 940 1279
pkoenig@phillips.com

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session

New York Auction 15 May 2024