Ronnie Hughes

Born in Belfast in 1965, Ronnie Hughes studied at the University of Ulster, receiving an MA in Fine Art in 1989. Hughes has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout Ireland and has participated in group exhibitions worldwide. He has received several awards including a one-year residency in New York (PS1, 1990) and three-month residencies at Banff Arts Center, Canada (1994) and Bemis Arts Center, Nebraska (1997). Represented by the Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, his work is held in many public and corporate collections including both Irish Arts Councils and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. He has recently been awarded the ‘Irish Artist Fellowship’ for a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center and has also just been invited for a two-month residency at the prestigious ‘Albers Foundation’ in Connecticut.

Artist’s Statement

‘As a painter what interests me most is plasticity – not only with regard to inherent formal qualities and processes but also in terms of material and, primarily, meaning. I strive for paintings to become signifiers for a myriad of simultaneous, sometimes contradictory, ideas and reference points. Customarily I produce synthetic forms which take their cues from nature but which resonate with cultural associations.

I see the recent body of work as a plethora of ‘corrupted’ abstractions that meander through various modes of representation: Debased scientific diagrams meet cartoon-like anatomical references in an amalgam that seeks curious viewers for long-term relationships.’ - Ronnie Hughes 2005