Skylar Hughes
b. 1986
Skylar Hughes was born in Hartford on November 13, 1986 and grew up in Simsbury, Connecticut among a family of artists. His mother is an art teacher, his father a painter by avocation, his older brother a motion graphics designer, and his younger brother a sculptor who has also made many of the frames for Skylar’s paintings. Hughes attended school in Simsbury and graduated from Simsbury High School in 2005. He then entered at the Hartford Art School of the University of Hartford where he studied painting, illustration, printmaking, and art history. He showed in the prestigious Goldfarb Exhibition all four years of his time at the Hartford Art School. In 2007 he participated in the UGA Studies Abroad program in Cortona, Italy. He says that the time he spent traveling alone in Europe after he left Cortona was particularly important in his artistic development. He received a BFA in 2009. His colleagues at the Art School included Sam McKinniss, Kyle Phillips, Matt Morello, and Miguel Carter-Fisher. McKinniss painted Hughes’ portrait several times during their years at the Art School.
In 2010 he was an artist in residence at the Billings Forge in Hartford, Connecticut, and a Resident Artist of the Firebox Restaurant. He received 2nd place in the 2010 juried Members Exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art for an intaglio etching entitled, “There Are Mountains Left To Climb”. This led to his first solo show, “One Big Gust of Wind”, held at the NBMAA in the summer of 2013. This show of paintings and collage was created after his move to Los Angeles. Hughes says:
“The work as a whole was different than what had come before. It was made at a new point in my artistic development, at a new point in my progression as an artist. It was a very interesting experience for me to be working on that show and to have just moved to a new place, a kind of fresh start. I took quite a bit of time playing around and experimenting, trying to move forward with freedom and chance and to let things happen, while at the same time trying to fill a space with 25 pieces.”
In the publicity for the show he described the work as, hovering, “on the edge between abstraction and representation, the familiar and the unrecognizable, and conscious and unconscious painterly gesture”. He said, “My work will sit between one of my favorite Fairfield Porter paintings (“Laurence at the Piano”, 1953), and an iconic, cite specific Thomas Hart Benton mural (“The Arts of Life in America”, 1932). It’s a tremendous thing to be given that kind of recognition and an ideal space for this body of work.”
While he considers himself a painter, he is also interested in music. During his time in college he wrote and recorded an album and created a second album shortly after he graduated.
In January 2015 he had a small show at the Alias Books East in Los Angeles .
He is currently living and working in Los Angeles
The New Britain Museum of American Art collection contains has two of his works.
Billingsforgeworks.org
NBMAA eMuseum
NBMAA wordpress.com
Skylarhughes.com
(“100 Years”, by Skylar Hughes, oil on canvas, 18”x18”, 1911)
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