MARCH 21 – MAY 11, 2018

Opening Reception with the Artist
Wednesday, March 21, 6 – 8 PM

SOCO Gallery is thrilled to present new paintings by Shara Hughes. The gallery will host a public opening reception on Wednesday, March 21 from 6 – 8PM. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition with SOCO Gallery.

Shara Hughes is best known for her whimsical landscapes constructed through a variety of painting techniques and bold colors, with each work balancing abstraction and representation. She recently described her work as imaginary landscapes that she makes up on the spot. “They start from a place of playfulness. It’s usually about the material and color in the beginning, then they kind of evolve into psychedelic type spaces that almost seem to occupy your mind more than a real space.” Hughes’ fantastical painted worlds brilliantly reference the spontaneous and contemporary moment of their creation while also evoking art historical traditions including Art Nouveau, Fauvism and German Expressionism. As The New York Times stated in its 2017 review of Hughes, "There are plenty of nods to historical precedents, and yet Ms. Hughes’s paintings look spontaneous and unaffected, as if, paradoxically, she has done no homework at all."

Shara Hughes (B. 1981, American)

Shara Hughes studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, where she received a BFA in 2004. She received a Joan Mitchell Fellowship to attend Vermont Studio Center, and attended Anderson Ranch artist residency as well as Atlantic Center for the Arts residency in Florida. In 2012 she was awarded the MOCA GA Working Artists Project fellowship. Solo exhibitions include Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York; Marlborough Chelsea, New York; Gallery Met, Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta; American Contemporary, New York; Rivington Arms, New York; Museum 52, London; Metroquadro, Rivoli; and Galerie Mikael Anderson, Copenhagen. She has participated in group exhibitions at Eve Presenhuber Gallery, Zurich; Haverkampf Gallery, Berlin; Jack Hanley Gallery, New York; Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco; Coburn Projects, London; Salon 94, New York; Gredier Contemporary, Zurich and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta among others. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Art, where she recently exhibited her paintings as part of the Whitney Biennial.