Cover - Viva Lewes

chris MCHUGH
The first thing I notice about Chris McHugh’s work is the extraordinarily
bold use of colour - a rich palette of ‘hot colours’, as Julian
Bell put it in a recent conversation with McHugh, as different as
possible from Bell’s own ‘blue’ paintings. Some paintings are obviously
abstracts - the only clue to his subjects in the titles themselves
- frequently place-names or the language of Greek mythology.
Others are apparently more representational - such as a series
of panoramic landscapes painted in comparatively more muted
hues. Speaking to Chris on the telephone I ask him which are more
typical. “The panoramas are not really landscapes for starters,” he
says, momentarily stopping me in my tracks. But they do look like
them, I persist. “Well they have a horizon”, he concedes. “What
I’m actually trying to do is play with that structure to explore the
idea of landscape painting. I’m interested in the way that the horizon
is such an instantly recognisable feature that even if you take
everything else out people will still make that connection.”
W W W. V I V A L E W E S . C O M
A r t
A r t
This is a recurring theme with Chris
it turns out, an interest in the way that
people ‘read’ artwork - an earlier series
involved distorted outlines of the human
face. All of these projects, however, he
describes as excursions from his central
project of producing truly abstract abstracts,
which don’t, he emphasises, have
a ‘real’ subject as such. “People will see
all sorts of things in them,” he says, “but
in fact the only subjects, if they have any,
are things and places in other paintings.”
What about the titles? “In a lot of ways
I think that titles can get in the way of
people interpreting work so I tend to
shy away from ones that push people in
a certain direction. When it does arrive
- usually after the painting is complete,
the title is usually an association, never a
description.”
The ongoing dilemma with abstract
work, however, is how to get people
to want to make their own interpretations,
I’m told. “It’s easier with the
horizons and the faces because there is
an obvious hook, but with the others
you have to bring people in with colour
and forms.” So what is he looking for
in a completed work? “I want people to
be able to keep returning to it and find
different things each time. That’s what
makes a great painting for me. It’s like
a person with a rich personality - you
keep finding out more about them that
you didn’t know.” He laughs, “I just
need to get people to get to the point
where they want to get to know them in
the first place.” V
Emma Robertson
Chris McHugh’s solo show runs from the
6th January at HQ Gallery.
01 73 487849
7