Shara Hughes was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1981. Hughes is widely recognized for her inventive landscape paintings and interiors, which probe the boundary between representation and abstraction. Hughes’s paintings exude a psychological complexity that derives from an idiosyncratic coalescence of memory, observation, and illusionism. The artist brings to life a world that is elegantly chaotic – infused with a vibrant harmony of the organic, the objective, and the surreal. Sinuous forms and spatial distortions coincide with expressive brushstrokes and a vivid color palette, creating a sense of whimsy that is simultaneously otherworldly and familiar. Vibrant palettes create a joyful atmosphere reminiscent of Matisse’s Fauvist landscapes. Color becomes a potent vehicle for expression, rousing and electrifying the enigmatic, organic forms of the natural world. Hughes delineates forms by engaging with vibrant fields of color and acute transitions in tonality, while she simultaneously structures her compositions through the application of color with bold, isolated brushstrokes. The artist’s gestural mark-making emphasizes the material qualities of her medium, as frenetic marks and thick, impasto brushstrokes create a rhythmic sense of movement and flux that is at once poetic and chaotic. Hughes earned her B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004 before studying at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. The artist currently lives and works in New York City.