Chris Shaw Hughes

MA with Distinction in Fine Art at University of Brighton, 2008 – 2010.

BA Hons (First Class) in Critical Fine Art Practice at Brighton, 2005 –2008.

27 years in the Advertising industry as Art Director and Creative Director, 1978 – 2005.

My practice revolves ‘artistically’ around the engagements between older, more traditional forms of making art and other, newer mediums – primarily, but not exclusively photography – and the ways in which we are affected by the mass media’s treatment of news events especially those involving trauma. My current work explores the ‘site of trauma’. I’m interested in how some places are ‘defined’ by the events that happen within them, and whether the aura of trauma remains, either in the places, or in our representations of them. Although I have made work using a diversity of media, I have recently been exploring the use of carbon paper as a medium. This has allowed me to investigate a kind of ‘negative’ aesthetic, which seems more appropriate when working with images of a sublime, catastrophic or traumatic nature.