Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs, if you think contemporary landscape has nothing left to tell us, you haven’t yet encountered the astonishing work of Shara Hughes. This American artist, born in 1981 in Atlanta, has managed to reinvent a genre that many considered exhausted, creating parallel worlds that defy our conventional understanding of nature and representation.
While our time is saturated with clichés and worn-out concepts, Hughes stands out for her ability to create works that transcend traditional categories. Her landscapes are not mere representations of existing places, but complex mental constructs that invite us to explore the uncharted territories of our psyche. Through her unique perspective, each painting becomes an open window onto a world where the laws of physics and perception are rewritten according to a dreamlike logic.
For example, take her masterwork “The Delicate Gloom” (2018), which perfectly illustrates her ability to transform a simple floral motif into a deep meditation on the nature of consciousness. In this dizzying painting, the colors seem to pulse with a life of their own, creating visual rhythms reminiscent of the beats of a cosmic heart. Deep purples blend with acid greens in a chromatic dance that evokes the liminal states of consciousness, those moments where objective reality dissolves into the flow of our subjective experience.
This singular approach to landscape finds a fascinating echo in the theories of perception developed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his “Phenomenology of Perception.” Just as the French philosopher suggested that our experience of the world is fundamentally embodied and subjective, Hughes creates landscapes that seek not to represent an objective reality, but rather to capture the very essence of our perceptive experience. Her paintings do not show us how the world appears to a detached observer, but how it is lived from within, in the intimacy of our consciousness.
The way Hughes approaches color is particularly revealing of this phenomenological approach. In “What Nerve” (2024), she uses bright blue dots that adorn the branches of a tree like so many eyes watching us. These touches of color are not merely decorative; they transform the tree into a conscious presence that looks at us as much as we look at it. This reciprocity of gaze, central to Merleau-Ponty’s thinking, becomes here a structuring element of the composition.
The artist works without preparatory sketches, allowing the painting to guide her in a process that recalls Merleau-Ponty’s description of perception as a constant dialogue between the perceiving subject and the perceived world. Each brushstroke, each chromatic decision emerges from a direct interaction with the pictorial material, creating forms that seem to be born spontaneously on the canvas, like thoughts emerging in our consciousness.
In “Obstacles” (2019), Hughes pushes this exploration even further. The shadows of the trees become almost tangible presences that converse with the surrounding vegetation, creating a complex play between the visible and the invisible, between what is directly perceived and what is suggested. This work perfectly illustrates what Merleau-Ponty called the “flesh of the world,” this common texture that unites the perceiver and the perceived in a shared sensitive fabric.
Hughes’ technique is as sophisticated as her vision is deep. She uses a variety of mediums, mixing oils, acrylics, and spray paints directly on the canvas. This multimedia approach creates textures and effects that enrich the visual complexity of her works. Drips, splashes, and spontaneous strokes are not mere stylistic effects but contribute to the creation of a pictorial space that reflects the dynamic and fluid nature of our perceptive experience.
In “Hot Coals” (2024), the central sun that seems to roast the surrounding vegetation creates a palpable tension between warmth and destruction, between vitality and threat. This duality is not simply thematic; it is inscribed in the very material of the painting, where thick impastos contrast with more fluid areas, creating a surface that invites both touch and gaze.
The recent evolution of her work towards more vertical formats is particularly interesting. This unconventional orientation for traditional landscapes is not a mere formal choice but a way to disrupt our usual relationship with landscape. By privileging verticality, Hughes compels us to abandon our position as detached spectators to engage in a more direct and embodied relationship with the work.
The treatment of flowers in her recent works reveals a new dimension of her exploration. In “My Natural Nyctinasty” (2021), a monumental flower closes its petals in a gesture that evokes both protection and imprisonment. This powerful image reminds us that our perception of the natural world is always colored by our own emotional states and psychological projections.
Her color palette, which may seem intuitive at first glance, reveals a sophisticated understanding of the phenomenology of color. The combinations she creates are not arbitrary, but serve to evoke specific perceptual experiences. A deep purple may suggest spatial depth while evoking an emotional state, while an electric yellow can create a sense of immediate closeness.
In “Burn Out” (2024), Hughes explores the limits of our perception of heat through color. Over nearly three meters wide, she creates a symphony of reds and oranges that not only represent heat but make us feel it almost physically. This ability to transform a thermal sensation into a visual experience perfectly illustrates the natural synesthesia of our perception, which Merleau-Ponty considered fundamental.
Hughes’ approach to perspective is particularly revelatory of her understanding of spatial perception. Her landscapes often present multiple viewpoints simultaneously, creating impossible spaces that defy our rational comprehension. This multiplication of perspectives is not merely a formal game, but an exploration of the fundamentally ambiguous nature of our spatial experience.
In “Swelling” (2024), she creates a monumental wave that seems to unfold in several dimensions simultaneously. This work does not simply represent a wave; it captures the lived experience of facing an overwhelming natural force. The composition makes us physically feel the vertigo and instability, illustrating how our perception of space is inseparable from our bodily experience.
The importance of emptiness in her compositions also deserves to be highlighted. The negative spaces in her works are never truly empty but vibrate with potential energy. In “Trust and Love” (2024), the space between two intertwined trees becomes an active presence that structures the entire composition. This treatment of emptiness recalls the Merleau-Pontian conception of the invisible as an integral part of the visible.
The way Hughes treats borders and frames in her works is particularly significant. Often, she creates painted frames that enclose the main scene, creating a mise en abyme that invites us to question the very nature of perception and representation. These frames function as perceptual thresholds, points of passage between different levels of reality.
Her creative process, which begins without a predetermined plan and develops organically, reflects the very nature of our perceptual engagement with the world. Each canvas becomes a journey of discovery, an exploration of the infinite possibilities of perception that gradually emerge through the act of painting.
In “I’m a Fan” (2024), she plays with our perception of movement through the representation of palm trees swaying in the wind. The leaves that seem to ripple before our eyes are not simply represented in motion; they create a kinesthetic sensation that engages our whole body. This ability to transform a visual experience into a bodily sensation is at the heart of her practice.
Hughes’ landscapes are not merely places to contemplate, but spaces of active experience where the viewer is invited to engage their entire sensitive being. In “Float Along” (2024), the borders that frame the composition create a portal effect that literally invites us to enter the space of the painting. This invitation for perceptual journey is characteristic of her approach that never settles for mere representation.
Her recent series “Tree Farm” (2024) pushes this exploration of embodied perception even further. The trees she paints are not mere natural objects, but living presences that seem to breathe on the canvas. In “Wits End” (2024), a weeping willow with twisting branches becomes a metaphor for our own sensitive body, its ramifications evoking our nervous system.
The latest developments in her work also include an exploration of ceramics, where she transposes her unique vision into the third dimension. These sculptures, though new to her practice, naturally extend her exploration of embodied perception, offering the viewer an even more directly physical experience of her organic forms.
Shara Hughes has succeeded in creating a unique visual language that transcends traditional boundaries of landscape to explore the very foundations of our perceptive experience. Her works do not merely represent the world; they invite us to perceive it anew, with a freshness and intensity that transform our understanding of what painting can be today. Her work reminds us that true artistic innovation does not reside in superficial novelty, but in the ability to renew our gaze on the world and ourselves.
