Des Hughes: Empty House

It all starts in the studio for Des Hughes. Where that studio might be, or in what form, is not fully determined. Hughes embraces temporary spaces that rid him of the responsibilities and pressure that more formal spaces can impose over time. Makeshift and temporary, his studio functions as an empty box.

Hughes collects, fractures, and fuses fragments together to create sculptural bricolage that rethinks conventional methods and materials. He consolidates his art practice by doing what he wants everyday, free from pressure or predetermined aesthetic or outcome. This freedom is reflected in the variety of materials and processes he uses, including cross-stitch, bronze and wood. Hughes’ works are circumstantial, he avoids defining himself as a painter or sculptor and is led by material, chance encounters and observation. The work of a bored technician, a shop owner's sign, or church kneeler, Hughes imitates and restages everyday acts and objects as performative processes.

Fascinated with the material world of objects, Hughes’ work is an amalgamation of the environment he comes into contact with. His magpie mentality means his work extends beyond the material to draw ideas from places, such as hand made signs seen in windows and old stepladders, proving that nothing is off limits. It can take years for categories, patterns and connections to realise themselves into a body or individual work. Hughes approaches all aspects of his process with care and dedication; collecting, stacking and piling are treated equally to the casting process that involves multiple hands. Through perverse humour, Hughes’ democratisation of material, space and category asks us to question the hierarchies we have placed on them. His cross-stitch work exhibits tension between the dynamism of the quickly drawn scribble and the restraint and measure it takes to stitch.

Empty House is a repair that will last forever, a reminder of Hughes first and most productive studio. From here he starts again, until he is greeted by his next ‘empty house’.