Shara Hughes

In the Clear
2016

A vertical border of blending warm and cool colors frames a whimsical nature scene with green and blue leaves, red waters, and red, green, and orange treetops

Not on view

Date
2016

Classification
Paintings

Medium
Oil, acrylic, and dye on canvas

Dimensions
Overall: 68 1/16 × 59 7/8in. (172.9 × 152.1 cm)

Accession number
2017.169

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz

Rights and reproductions
© Shara Hughes

API
artworks/55888

Audio

Shara Hughes

From Whitney Biennial 2017, Whitney Biennial 2017 (Kids)

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Shara Hughes

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Shara Hughes: I'm Shara Hughes. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia and I've lived in New York for two and a half years. I started making these landscapes pretty much when I moved here. They are all completely made up. I've never been to these places, I don't dream about these places, I don't see them before I start them. I just kind of start and they just evolve pretty intuitively.
Most of the time, I start with—I dye the canvas a certain color and then it sparks something inside of me to then make another move. A lot of it is raw canvas combined with heavily gessoed canvas or parts of them that are prepared with caulk.
Narrator: Thick surface treatments like gesso and caulk make some areas of the canvas more opaque and less absorbent.
Shara Hughes: The paint sits on it different ways and that stretches the limitations of the illusion of how far off something is. If something is dyed first, it feels like it's really far away, whereas if something's heavily gessoed, it kind of sits on top and it feels closer. Sometimes, I'm also painting from behind. I'll spray paint from behind before it's been treated and it'll bleed through and it'll be like sort of an abstract mark that I have to deal with.
Shara Hughes

From Whitney Biennial 2017, Whitney Biennial 2017 (Kids, Spanish)

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Shara Hughes

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Shara Hughes: Soy Shara Hughes. Nací en Atlanta, Georgia, y vivo en Nueva York desde hace dos años y medio. Comencé a hacer estos paisajes al poco tiempo de haber llegado a esta ciudad. Son completamente inventados. Jamás he visitado estos lugares, no los he soñado; nunca los había visto antes de comenzarlos. Podría decir que los empiezo y evolucionan de manera bastante intuitiva.
Suelo comenzar por manchar el lienzo de cierto color; entonces, algo despierta en mi interior para dar el paso siguiente. Gran parte del lienzo está en crudo combinado con partes con yeso u otras preparadas con masilla.
Narrator: Los tratamientos gruesos de la superficie, usando yeso o masilla, crean zonas en el lienzo que son opacas y menos absorbentes.
Shara Hughes: La pintura se asienta de maneras diferentes y extiende los límites de la ilusión de cuán lejos está algo. Si algo se mancha primero, pareciera estar muy lejos, mientras que aquello que tiene yeso grueso sobresale del lienzo y pareciera estar más cerca. A veces, también pinto desde atrás. Rocío pintura desde atrás antes de tratar el lienzo y esa capa sangra a través del material, es como una marca abstracta que luego debo abordar.