https://bluethumb.com.au/matthew-hughes?hsh=MHI%3EBluethumb https://bluethumb.com.au/matthew-hughes?hsh=MHI%3EBluethumb
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Recipient of the TACIT Still Life - Curator's Prize 2021

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Still life-balance, 2020 - Artist Statement​​

 

This body of work, six images in total, was made during last year’s Covid19 lockdown in Melbourne. The series, made over a two-week period, explores isolation and the resulting change to our life-balance. The photographs describe a state of mind, the sense of endless mundane house-bound routine against the often-overlooked simple pleasures, like watching sunlight falling on a vase of flowers.

 

These are not static vignettes; there is a chase scene. Sunlight appears to visibly race across the wall infusing the scene with a warm glow and in that perfect fraction of a second everything is in absolute balance and all of our current worries are forgotten and we can once again breathe.      

 

These photographs were made on film using a large format camera. The lens was replaced with two large magnifying glasses. A combination of film and digital techniques allowed for a negative to be contact printed for these final prints. The paper was coated by hand with a light sensitive emulsion in preparation for the 19th century, Van Dyke Brown printing process. Each print is unique and finished with bee’s wax. 

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Ester's Orchid, 2019

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"I was given an orchid. It lived under a skylight bathed in changing in sunlight"

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© Mat Hughes Images all rights reserved

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