Laura Hughes, a dynamic Visual Artist currently based in Portland, Oregon, produces compelling site-specific art installations investigating how light, form and space surround and shape one another in our collective perception.
Directly responding to the given features of architectural space, Hughes manipulates reflective materials and artificial or natural light to navigate dimensional relationships, intersecting planes, and shifting visibility relative to surface, space and the movements of viewers.
Laura Hughes and partner/artist Jack Featherly during the installation of Imager in Concourse A, October 18, 2017.
Hughes’ contemporary and colorful large-scale installation for the PDX Art Program titled Imager incorporates mirrored surfaces and reflective materials to frame shifting light conditions within the interior surroundings of the terminal within Concourse A. The installation is activated by the movement of travelers passing by and also by the changing light.
In Hughes’ words: “the premise of how surfaces are experienced in an architectural framework is often at the periphery of our attention, yet in this location there is an opportunity for new visible potentials to be discovered and a larger potential metaphor to unfold. As surfaces capture a range of light conditions seen from different vantage points, an ever-changing composition reflects, projects, retreats and repositions different points of view to form a participatory dialogue with the environment and with one another.”
Originally from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Laura Hughes’ work has been featured at Linfield College (McMinnville, OR), Kathrin Cawein Gallery (Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR), Fortune Gallery (Portland, OR), Out of Site at King Street Station (Seattle, WA), the de Menil Gallery (Groton, MA), Littman Gallery (Portland, OR), The Art Gym (Marylhurst, OR), LxWxH (Seattle, WA), Disjecta (Portland, OR), White Box (Portland, OR), the Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA), Archer Gallery (Vancouver, WA), Gallery Homeland (Portland, OR), Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR), Ditch Projects (Springfield, OR), Appendix Project Space (Portland, OR), the Portland Building (Portland, OR), Atelier Gallery (Vancouver BC), the Art Gallery of Calgary (Calgary, AB) and the Banff Centre (Banff, AB).
Laura Hughes and partner/artist Jack Featherly during the installation of Imager in Concourse A, October 18, 2017.
Laura Hughes has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Oregon Arts Commission, the Ford Family Foundation and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Hughes received an MFA in Visual Studies from the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR), and a BFA in Drawing with Distinction from the Alberta College of Art & Design (Calgary, AB, Canada). She is currently a professor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and Portland State University.
Imager by Laura Hughes is now on view post-security at PDX within Concourse A on the Northeast installation wall through October 21st of 2018.
For more information about Laura Hughes and her practice, please visit her website: