The British-Australian artist Ariane Heloise Hughes describes her work as intricate, sensual, absurd. Appropriating often banal and unwittingly familiar narratives into a visual vernacular full of unusual and exaggerated forms, Hughes’ surrealistic depictions create a world that aims to draw the viewer in, engaging them in a process of active looking and contemplative thought. Through anachronistic objects and elements, distortions of scale and uses of colour, the artist usurps her reflections of now into ostensibly traditional and curious settings. By simultaneously drawing attention to the artifice of the image while presenting it as truth through naturalistic renderings, she is reflecting on the function of social media. Engaging deeply with the aesthetics and history of surrealism, Hughes’ paintings draw on and exaggerate the interplay between the real and the unreal.
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