Rowena Hughes

Swimming to Dissolve, 2023
Acrylic & pencil on photograph printed on Hahnemuhle photo rag matte 308gsm
575 x 810mm

Soften Before Melting, 2023
Acrylic and pencil on photograph printed on Hahnemuhle photo rag matte 308gsm
575 x 810mm

These paintings are combining black and white systematic drawings with images of the sea, evoking a sense of continual movement and the flow of currents and ripples. It is a series of vertically oriented seascapes, traditionally a subject matter that usually is presented horizontally, but here without a horizon, which evokes the experience of immersion in nature or a fragmented portrait, the ego dissolving through swimming. Penrose tiling, found on both works, has special geometric qualities of using only two diamond shapes, being able to stretch to infinity without forming a regularly repeating pattern. This echoes the visual complexity of constantly moving patterns of waves and how the eye attempts to trace this perpetual flow.

Rowena Hughes born in London, lives and works in Athens and London. She graduated from BA Fine Art at Goldsmiths (2001) and MFA at the Slade (AHRC Studentship Award) (2011). Exhibitions include Sunlight Still Loops, The Eyes Sees, Arles (2020); Freshly Broken Surfaces, Galerie Pcp, Paris (two person) (2016); Liquid Library, University Museum, Athens (2015); From the Slopes of the Curves, Galerie Renner Prinz, Vienna (2012); Soft Parallels, Roaming Room, London (2011); and Diamonds & Diagrams, Guestroom, London (2008). Selected group exhibitions include: A Scattering of Salts, Deree ACG Gallery, Athens (2023); Inaspettatamente, Cloud Seven, Brussels (2022); B, Belmacz, London (2019); In Quotes, East Gallery NUA and Gerald Moore Gallery, London (2017-18); In the Air Tonight, Galerie Gebr Lehmann, Berlin (2013); Back to the Future, Breese Little, London (2012); Wit, Fear & Sarcasm, Fine Art Society Contemporary, London (2011); and Rowena Hughes, Eddie Peake, Jean Charles de Quillacq, Rod Barton, London (2010).