2023 | SIMON HUGHES
Simon Hughes
TORONTO
Sep 21 - Nov 4, 2023

In his new exhibition at Blouin Division in Toronto, Simon Hughes expands on a painting practice he began in 2016. In this work, compositions that can loosely be interpreted as landscapes are created through the integration of collage elements and simple shapes painted in overlapping glazes of acrylic colour. These collage elements are culled from sources that range wildly, from National Geographic magazines to 1970s fantasy-art calendars, resulting in a hybrid form of classic Surrealism. Three large paintings form the nucleus of the show, featuring the results of an extended period of experimentation with colours and palettes. The challenge to create works in “difficult” ranges (i.e. pink, beige) pushes the idea of “dreamscapes” into newly resonant terrain. 

Accompanying the exhibition works is an archival box that acts as a bibliography for Hughes’s vast collage source material. Visitors are invited to open the box and peruse the various pages from coffee table books and magazines, ranging in subject matter from landscapes to art and architecture, animals, anatomy, and much more.