For 60 years, Patrick Hughes has been busy capturing the attention and imaginations of many, with his innovative
artworks that play with the science of perception and the nature of artistic representation. He is famed for his
three-dimensional reverspectives, which create illusions of space and movement, immersing the viewer in an
experience of unreality. Now, the artist is celebrating six decades of a distinguished career with a new solo
exhibition at London’s Bel-Air Fine Art Gallery in Mayfair. With a playful artistic aesthetic that bleeds into his
own personal manner of dress and sense of style, the dapper 80-year-old provided us with some valuable insight into
his practice and wardrobe...
Talk me through the key concepts that inform your artistic practice...
Humour and wit and comedy are my preferred procedures, I am not drawn to the conventional ways of tragedy or the
pursuit of beauty or personal angst. I very rarely describe things as beautiful: good-looking or interesting or
remarkable would be good enough for me. I do not think I have ever gone as far as beautiful except for female film
stars, not landscapes or art. Wit is concise, table-turning, imaginative, playful, sometimes ugly, strong and
powerful. I can remember the car journey with my tutor sixty years ago when I announced I was going to go in the
direction of humour in my art.
How has your artistic style evolved over the past 60 years?
Over my career in art I have evolved in that when I started I was a naïve artist – I have never done life-drawing –
which crude simplicity I linked with design. At first I was influenced by Paul Klee of the Bauhaus, and I was
delighted by his simplicity and childish representations and basic design and geometry. At the beginning and for
twenty years I painted in gloss paint flatly on hardboard in given colours with simple masses making what were
sometimes profound and poetic jokes.