Shara Hughes: Inside Outside

By blending pigments directly on the canvas, Hughes creates energetic landscapes in unique palettes, rich with somatic and psychological charges

Published with Norton Museum of Art.

Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-based artist Shara Hughes (born 1981) is known for her vibrant painted landscapes that blur the boundary between figuration and abstraction. Her practice is intuitive, steering clear of direct observation or external references. She creates distinctive color palettes by mixing pigments directly on the surface, evoking movements such as color field painting and post-Impressionism. The final composition serves as a translation of the complex psychology of Hughes' inner world onto the canvas. Inside Outside, published to accompany the artist's first mid-career survey at the Norton Museum of Art, features work from the past two decades of her career. Organized both chronologically and thematically, it explores the concept of the "window," highlighting Hughes' experiments with ceramics and her ongoing exploration of trees, waterways, mountains and moody interiors.