Shara Hughes: Sun Salutations

Building on a visual vocabulary of the early modernist painters, Hughes creates landscapes that are altogether new in their depiction of pictorial space. A blend of abstraction and representation, Hughes’ paintings take the viewer on a journey through the composition, with twists and turns that encourage new ways of looking.

For Sun Salutations, Hughes has created three monumental paintings inspired by Middletown, RI's Purgatory Chasm for the Newport Art Museum. According to the artist, “When I’ve spent time in Newport it has been very apparent how important water is to the shape of the landscape, as well as the shape of the community. It seems we’re always aligning ourselves towards the ocean. We face our homes out to it, we curve roads and trails around it, and our entire ecosystem depends on it. I wanted to make three prominent paintings that were shaped and linked by water, and to use primary colors. There’s something about pure, unmixed color that gives the work a sharpness – the sun is crisper, the reflections are sharper, and it made sense to me to incorporate that kind of visual language.”

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.