Focus Will Hughes

Who are you and where are you from?
My Name is Will Hughes and I’m a visual artist based in Stockton-on-Tees, with a studio at Platform A in Middlesbrough.

What is it you do?
I’m a sculpture and installation artist.

Who or what inspires you?
I’m inspired by my working class upbringing, pop culture and my own life. By the queer community and experiences i’ve had. I’m inspired by minimalist sculpture how objects can say so much even when paired back and abstracted. 

Tell us about your work/music/creative practice.
I create work which deals with concepts of aspiration, queerness and glamour. Glamour is a spell which is cast, a blur, something transformative and seductive. As Donatella Versace once said, ‘you can be too boring, but you can never be too seductive’. I’m interested in how the recreation of form through casting, layering and bejewelling affects an object’s cultural capital. I use song lyrics as titles to reference pop culture and obscure contexts, social and material histories to weave personal narratives which simmer below a veil of glossy, shiny surface.

What do you have coming up in the near future?
As one of the Tees Valley Artists of the Year I have been awarded a year’s wage, mentoring support and a development budget to really push my practice and see what I can produce when the financial barriers are reduced. Ive also been working with Hardcopy* to produce a diamond dust screen print in a perspex frame, which is now on sale and available online at https://www.hardcopyshop.com/ . I’m also hugely excited to be showing new works at MIMA later in the year, This exhibition will have. a significant number of new pieces not seen before and i’m relishing the chance to see my work in the main gallery space. 

Where can people find out more about you?
You can follow my practice on social media or via my website.

Instagram: @will_hughes_art_
Website: https://www.willhughesartist.com/