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20 Questions: Patrick Hughes

Born in Birmingham on 20 October 1939, Patrick Hughes, is a British painter living and working in London. He has been creating pieces inspired by optics, perspective and illusion for 40 years. He has three sons, and has been married three times.

Since his first solo exhibition at the Portal Gallery, London, in 1961, Hughes has exhibited extensively in London, as well as throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, America and Canada. In 2010, he had solo exhibitions at Park Ryu Sook Gallery (Soeul, South Korea), Galerie Lélia Mordoch (Paris, France), Galerie Boisserée (Cologne, Germany) and Flowers Central (London, England), and participated in two group shows: "Images of St. Paul's in the 21st Century," in The Crypt at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and "Alice au pays des merveilles (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)" at Next Art Elysées in Paris.

Patrick Hughes is widely recognized as one of the major painters of contemporary British art. Although he has been linked to the British Surrealists and the Pop Artists, he has carved out his own niche. In addition to painting, he is also a designer, teacher and writer. Hughes has authored numerous magazine articles and four books which reflect his unique artistic vision and concepts. Left to Write, published in 2008, is an illustrated anthology of Hughes's writings, catalogue introductions and journalism. His other books include: More on Oxymoron (1984), Upon the Pun: Dual Meaning in Words and Pictures (1978) and Vicious Circles and Infinity: A Panoply of Paradoxes (1975) which each explore the philosophy of jokes, riddles, conundrums, paradoxes, and other linguistic ephemera and visual witticisms.

Several monographs and catalogues of Hughes's work have been produced, including Multiples (2008), a catalogue of multiples produced between 1996 and 2008, Reverspective Versus Perspective (2008), featuring 12 paintings from his first exhibition at Nicholas Metivier Gallery, The Prints In Between (2007), cataloguing prints produced between 1983 and 1995, and Behind the Rainbow: Prints 1964-1983 (1983), cataloguing his early work. The most comprehensive monograph, Perverspective (2005), is written by London-based American art critic John Slyce. Although now out of print, two of Patrick Hughes's books are available for download in PDF format through his website. Upon the Pun: Dual Meaning in Words and Pictures, published by W.H. Allen, a subsidiary of Random House and Virgin Enterprises now called Virgin Publishing Ltd., can be downloaded here, and 1984's More on Oxymoron, published by Jonathan Cape, Ltd., is available here.

Hughes's early works are created in a variety of media: Oil, pen and ink, and screenprinting. Generally, they are graphic explorations of optical paradoxes. Figures are rendered as if squashed flat by a steamroller, as in 1961's Wholly Gent. Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts, an English candy, is the subject of another piece. The multicolored candies are shown as flat, geometric shapes on a solid green background. There are also minimalist works, such as the witty text-image piece One into Two. The faint suggestion of a paneled door emerges from a monochromatic pattern of red bricks in Brick Door, challenging the viewer to question whether the wall is made of bricks or the door is covered by wrapping paper.

In the 1970s, Hughes began his rainbow period—marked by his placement of rainbows in impossible situations. This exploration continued in earnest until the mid-1980s, and produced innumerable variations on a theme. These hard-edged rainbows are the antithesis of romanticism. Hughes's screenprinted rainbows contradict their fleeting nature, becoming trapped in situations that defy their essence: They are stuffed into letterboxes, thrown into dust bins, wrapped up as packages, casting shadows on walls, draped over crescent moons, arranged in vases, slung on shirt hangers, and standing in for phalluses emerging from men's zippers, to name a few circumstances. Although generally rendered as flat bands of color, in their conventional Roy G. Biv order, he also produced a number of "wrong rainbows" with simplified color schemes or with their colors out of sequence.

Patrick Hughes
Wholly Gent
1961
Oil on board with holes
57.5 cm x 70.5 cm
Sold in Hughes's first show at the Portal Gallery in 1961.

Patrick Hughes
Brick Door
1964
Screenprint
Edition 40
85.5 cm x 46.5 cm
Tate Collection
Presented by Rose and Chris Prater through the Institute of Contemporary Prints, 1975

Patrick Hughes
One into Two
1973
Pen and ink drawing
53.5 cm x 79.5 cm

Patrick Hughes
Liquorice Allsorts
1973
Screenprint
Edition 75
70 cm x 60 cm

Patrick Hughes
Poster design for the 1981 theater production of
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
1981
Pencil, gouache and collage
62.5 cm x 55 cm

Patrick Hughes
Perfect Present
1983
Mixed media
45.5 cm x 61.5 cm

Two often-told memories illustrate the early development of Hughes's contradictory view of the world, and of his interest in perspective and optical illusion. During World War II, he lived with his mother at his grandparents' house, and they would often hide together from German bombs under the stairs. In an interview with Hughes on the occasion of his 2008 show, "Superspectivision," at Scott Richards Contemporary Art, he explained the relationship of his work to childhood memory:

One time, when the Germans were trying to kill me, I used to hide in the Second World War, with my mother under the stairs. And the wooden stairs were shaped like my work—in reverse. You know, I was under the stairs, and they were stairs that only a fly could climb up. You know, you couldn't walk up these stairs. And that's what my work is like.

And similarly, at my grandmother's house where we were hiding, there was a mirror on the wall in a tiny room here, and there was a mirror on the wall there. And so [when standing between them] one went to infinity. And in a way, all this perspective leads to infinity, so between infinity and a reverse perspective, it's from my childhood that I've been stimulated to make this work.

Patrick Hughes
Up Town
1994
Oil on board construction
101.5 cm x 108 cm x 36 cm

Sometimes called "sticking-out paintings," or "moving pictures," Hughes made his first Reverspective—a contraction of "reverse" and "perspective"—in 1964. The piece, called Sticking Out Room, is a life-sized "room" created for the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). In 2009, Hughes related his discovery of the illusory effects of Sticking Out Room to art reporter Kishore Singh:

It was ... his contradictory view of a room that stuck outwards instead of one you could walk into, but as he walked away from it to look back again, the perspective changed, so the part that was closest actually looked the furthest. "It was bloody marvellous," he says with not a little glee.¹

"Project LITE: Light Inquiry Through Experiments" is located in the Science and Mathematics Education Center at Boston University, and develops materials about light, optics, color and perception. Based on the original concept by Hughes, Project LITE co-initiator, and Boston University astronomy professor, Kenneth Brecher, and student Rebecca Puno, designed a version of Sticking Out Room that can be downloaded, printed and assembled.

He returned to making Reverspectives in 1990 with Up the Line (1991) and Down the Road (1991).

So, what is a Reverspective? According to Hughes's artist statement:

Reverspectives are three-dimensional paintings that, when viewed from the front, initially give the impression of viewing a painted flat surface that shows a perspective view. However as soon as the viewer moves their head even slightly, the three-dimensional surface that supports the perspective view accentuates the depth of the image and accelerates the shifting perspective more than the brain normally allows. This provides a powerful and often disorienting impression of depth and movement. The illusion is made possible by painting the view in reverse to the relief of the surface, that is, the bits that stick farthest out from the painting are painted with the most distant part of the scene.

Patrick Hughes
Jazz
February 2010
Oil on wood
109 cm x 254 cm x 41 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

"In my paintings, ... I wanted to go to infinity, but I discovered it doesn't work," Hughes told Barbara A. MacAdam in a March 2004 ARTNews interview.² Reverspectives begin their lives as several trapezoidal, triangular, or, sometimes-truncated, pyramidal board constructions fused together. Concerning the physical structure of Reversepctives, the bases of the pyramids are farthest away from the viewer—situated flat against the wall. The rectangles, which in this specific piece represent the back wall of a fictive gallery space, upon which hangs from left to right Henri Matisse's 1947 cut-outs Monsieur Loyal, Icarus and Le Toboggan respectively, are the flat tops of the pyramids—situated nearest to the viewer, as illustrated by this diagram:

Diagram illustrating the physical structure of Jazz by Patrick Hughes.
The white rectangles are nearest to the viewer, but appear farthest away.

Barbara A. MacAdam describes his process further:

He works by building the forms first and then deciding on the scenes, considering the constructions' "solid lumps of space, with lines of sight ... as if you solidified lines of sight." On one occasion, three assistants labored at painting scenes of nature copied from photographs onto sections of boards. These are basically Hughes's ready-mades. The nature panels will be concealed and then revealed ad infinitum behind panels of white doors. Hughes explains that he has the nature scenes copied from photographs so that they are real places. "Otherwise, they don't work."

In a short 1997 documentary, Perverspective, by Jake Auerbach and Michael Houldey, Hughes elaborates on his creative process:

[These wooden structures] are very odd things really. They're big lumps of space, and they're big lumps of space in perspective. So when I've made them like that, that white version, I then give them some sort of a base color underneath. In a way these tank tracks, or big lumps, are intractable, big, horrible, geometric, male things, that you have to, with a bit of love, and sympathy, and the Dance of the Seven Veils, make them seductive.

View Larger
Animation illustrating the optical effect created by Hughes's Reverspectives.
Image: Jazz (2010), courtesy of the artist
Animation: Jody Wilson

He continues:

The irony is that making these things that stick out a foot into the air, and that so clearly are not spatial illusions from where you're looking, is that they are the strongest spatial illusions. They're stronger than if they were flat, and that's because the power of our minds that sends them back. My saw, my glue, sticks them out, but your eyes and your minds send them back.

The signature elements of Hughes's Reverspectives are rectilinear forms which serve to heighten the illusory impact of the pieces: Gallery walls, buildings, books and bookcases, doors which often open onto incongruent landscapes, and recognizable works of art. A common theme is the construction of rooms—surreal gallery spaces populated with allusions to other artists. Warholiness (2010), Andy Glimpsed (2009) and Warholiday (2008), among others, are mini-retrospectives of Andy Warhol, with Moas, Marylins, Campbell's Soup Cans and Brillo boxes filling the space. Other pieces, like The History of Sculpture (2010), feature variations on a theme: Eight sculptures, including Venus de Milo (2nd Century bc), Auguste Rodin's The Thinker (1879-1889), Edgar Degas' Little Dancer of Fourteen Years (1881), and Alberto Giacometti's L'Homme qui marche I (Walking Man 1) (1960), along with Asian and other modern figurative pieces, stand in wooden shipping crates on an austere gray platform. The images in Hughes's work are less about the history of art, however, and more about easily accessible images through which the viewer can engage with his work. Magritte, Warhol, Modrian, et al., become touchstones for his viewers to participate in Hughes's visual discourse on perspective, perception and vision.

Hughes painting Photorealism in 2009. (Image courtesy of the artist.)

His work is part of many important permanent public museum collections including the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in Glasgow, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Frankfurt am Main, the British Library, Victoria and Albert Museum and Tate Gallery each in London.

Doors of Knowledge, Hughes's submission for the Vancouver Biennale 2009-2011, is installed in Minoru Park, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. The piece, like Hughes's other Reverspectives, "visually forces the viewer to question ... ingrained habits of visual perception, the way that our visual reading of the world affects how we relate to the world around us."³ The Reverspective sculpture consists of 24 panels, each measuring 7 feet by 3 feet. Hinged aluminum doors upon a wooden boardwalk are painted on one side, while bookcases filled with images of books are painted on the other. As the viewer moves around the piece, the doors open or close, either revealing or concealing the natural landscape painted behind them. "The work is interactive in its design by creating an optical illusion that the viewer must participate in, in order to 'read' it."⁴

Patrick Hughes
Doors of Knowledge
2010
High-quality vinyl coating on hard wood panels
24 panels each measuring 212 cm x 90 cm
Installation view, Minoru Park, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Photographed 10 May 2010, copyright Dan Fairchild

Patrick Hughes
Doors of Knowledge
2010
High-quality vinyl coating on hard wood panels
24 panels each measuring 212 cm x 90 cm
Installation view, Minoru Park, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Photographed 10 May 2010, copyright Dan Fairchild

Patrick Hughes
Doors of Knowledge
2010
High-quality vinyl coating on hard wood panels
24 panels each measuring 212 cm x 90 cm
Installation view, Minoru Park, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Photographed 10 May 2010, copyright Dan Fairchild

Patrick Hughes
Doors of Knowledge
2010
High-quality vinyl coating on hard wood panels
24 panels each measuring 212 cm x 90 cm
Installation view, Minoru Park, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Photographed 10 May 2010, copyright Dan Fairchild

Patrick Hughes
Doors of Knowledge
2010
High-quality vinyl coating on hard wood panels
24 panels each measuring 212 cm x 90 cm
Installation view, Minoru Park, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Photographed 10 May 2010, copyright Dan Fairchild

In a 2007 interview, for the Galerie Lélia Mordoch show "Perspective perpétuelle" in Paris, Hughes discussed the perceived movement of his Reverspectives:

What I would say is that [my Reverspectives are] kinetic in the sense that the movement comes from you or me, from us, instead of kinetic things with a motor that's turning around. So I made the viewer, the looker, the motor.

"The front planes," he explained to the interviewer, "are the working mechanisms, and the top and bottom are the background."

The prices for a Reverspective range from $25,000 to $200,000. In a 2006 Sotheby's Contemporary Art action, Hughes's Reverspective painting titled Never Ending sold for $102,000.⁵

"One of Patrick's most haunting images," reads a newspaper clipping on Hughes's website, "is a painting of New York's doomed World Trade Center towers." The article continues:

He completed the painting on 7 September 2001, just four days before the towers were devastated in a terrorist attack.

Patrick created the picture for an exhibition in New York because he considered the towers to be such a strong symbol of the city. He said: "After the attack, I thought that this was a painting of a graveyard and that it couldn't be shown. But after two or three weeks, the towers became a place where people had died heroically—its meaning changed, and it could be shown without being ghoulish."

The picture was bought by an Englishman who worked in the towers for finance firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost hundreds of staff in the disaster, and is now in a private collection.

Patrick Hughes
The Twin Towers
2001
Oil on wood construction
48.75 cm x 40 cm x 8 cm

He has been represented by Flowers Gallery London since 1970. In San Francisco, Patrick Hughes's work can be seen at Scott Richards Contemporary Art, where he had a show in 2008 called "Superspectivision." He has spoken twice at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to the images of Hughes's work reproduced below, a selection of Reverspectives can be seen in the online gallery section of his website.

Beginning in early-October 2010, I corresponded with Patrick Hughes over a period of two weeks via email:

HISTORY AND INFLUENCES
Q: Patrick, please take me back to the beginning: When did you first realize that you are an artist?
A: I became a visual artist when I went to college for teachers. In the English Department to which I was applying they asked me which writers I liked. I answered Franz Kafka, Eugene Ionesco, Lawrence Sterne, N.F. Simpson, Christian Morgenstern and Samuel Butler. They said, "You should be in the Art Department." So I became an artist.

Q: Was there something else that you originally wanted to be—or a profession that you wanted to pursue? What were those other pursuits, and how did you become an artist?
A: Yes, I wanted to be a writer but I was so impressed with the paradoxical writings of those I just mentioned that I thought it would be a novelty to be a paradoxical visual artist.

Q: If you had only one word to describe your work, what would it be?
A: "Paradoxical."

Q: You once said that you were "the only Pop artist who was actually ever popular." What did you mean by that statement?
A: The material used by Pop Artists is popular, but they themselves appeal to the intelligentsia. Roy Lichtenstein is essentially making fun of comics. My Rainbows sold in postcards a million.

Artists & Illustrators, September 2008

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Q: In terms of the particular history of your work, would you call yourself a Pop artist—an Op artist—something else?
A: I wouldn't call myself either of those. Why should I call myself anything? I am surprised that I even have a name.

Q: Can you set the historical scene for me a little bit by telling me what it was like to be a successful artist in the 60s, and to be part of such a revolutionary art movement?
A: I was not a successful artist in the 1960s. I did not become successful until the 1990s. I have never been part of any art movement.

Q: I suppose my definition of "success" would be "making a living solely from your art." If you were not successful for thirty years, can you describe that period in your life?—How did you support yourself?
A: I was perhaps living from my art, but only just. I lived in a squat when I was 44-47 years old. I always had a gallery and some sales from prints, postcards, paintings, teaching.

Q: What would you call your first "big break," that lead to your becoming successful in the 90s?
A: What lead to me being successful was the Reverspectives, which, instead of telling you about paradoxes, are paradoxical.

Q: Who are the artists that you would say had the most direct influence on your work?
A: Magritte and Klee.

Q: I have read that Paul Klee was one of your early interests, but I have trouble seeing him in your work. Can you tell me how his work has influenced you?
A: Paul Klee was a formal artist who divided his canvas up in a variety of geometries, as I do. He went on to turn his geometries into figuration, which is what I do. He was very varied in his approach, as I am. And also he was a master of the variation on the theme, which I hope to be. He is childish, as I am, and involved with lines and mass and color, as I am. He is funny and comic, as I am.

Q: When looking at your work I think of Grand Tour vedute, Piranesi's architectural investigations, and trompe l'oeil illusionism. I am wondering if there might be a Baroque or Renaissance artist or two included on your list of influences?
A: I like Uccello, who was devoted to perspective, and Domenico Veneziano and a few early renaissance artists. I don't like Baroque.

Paolo Uccello
Stoning of Saint Stephen
c. 1435
Fresco
310 cm x 420 cm
Cathedral of Prato, Italy

Paolo Uccello
Miracle of the Desecrated Host (Scene 1)
c. 1465—1469
Tempera on panel
43 cm x 58 cm
Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino

Domenico Veneziano
The Annunciation
c. 1442—1448
Tempera on panel
27 cm x 54 cm
Fitzwilliam Musuem, Cambridge, England
(Formerly held in the Church of Santa Lucia dei Magnoli, Florence)

Q: Patrick, if you were stranded on a desert island, with only five pieces of art, including your own, to keep you company, what would you choose and why?
A: Magritte, "The Human Condition"; Klee, "The Marching Viaduct"; Escher, "Hand Drawing A Hand"; Meret Oppenheim, "Fur Cup and Saucer and Spoon," and one of my Reverspectives. The reason why would be because they seem to me the acme of paradoxical art.

René Magritte
La Condition humaine (The Human Condition)
1933
Oil on canvas
100 cm x 80cm
Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Paul Klee
Revolution of the Viaduct
1937
Oil on oil ground on cotton on a stretcher
60 cm x 50 cm
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

M. C. Escher
Drawing Hands
1948
Lithograph
28.2 cm x 33.2 cm

Meret Oppenheim
Object
1936
Fur-covered cup, saucer and spoon
Cup: 10.9 cm in diameter
Saucer: 23.7 cm in diameter
Spoon: 20.2 cm long
Overall height: 7.3 cm
Museum of Modern Art, New York

The influence of M. C. Escher can be seen in Hughes's 1976 collection of 8 etchings called "The Ouroboros," named for the ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail:

Patrick Hughes
Banana Mouth
1976
Etching
Edition 30
38 cm x 38 cm

Patrick Hughes
Co-Ordination
1976
Etching
Edition 30
38 cm x 38 cm

Patrick Hughes
Here He Comes
1976
Etching
Edition 30
38 cm x 38 cm

Patrick Hughes
Pencil Drawing
1976
Etching
Edition 30
38 cm x 38 cm

Patrick Hughes
Self Portrait
1976
Etching
Edition 30
38 cm x 38 cm

Patrick Hughes
Short Circuit
1976
Etching
Edition 30
38 cm x 38 cm

Patrick Hughes
Time Consuming
1976
Etching
Edition 30
38 cm x 38 cm

Patrick Hughes
Ying Yang Ouroboros
1976
Etching
Edition 30
38 cm x 38 cm

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THE RAINBOWS
Q: Can you tell me about "the rainbow"? It was an ever-present motif in your Op Art work. What does, or did, it represent for you, and why has it disappeared from your reverse perspective works?
A: People did not understand my rainbows. A rainbow is a fugitive temporary thing, a sign for a rare and passing event, so I made it permanent, trapped it, and made it cast a shadow—and so on. I continually contradicted it. I saw the irony in the pinning down of this butterfly. It doesn't fit into my Reverspectives.

Patrick Hughes
Angela's Flowers
1977
Screenprint
Edition 60
48 cm x 36 cm

Patrick Hughes
Rainbow Through Letterbox
1978
Gouache
40 cm x 28.5 cm

Patrick Hughes
Over the Moon
1978
Screenprint
72 cm x 48 cm
Tate Collection, presented by Christie's Contemporary Art 1979

Patrick Hughes
Weather Cock
1979
Screenprint
Edition 100
57.5 cm x 40 cm

Patrick Hughes
Rainbow Trout
1979
Screenprint
Edition 150
75 cm x 97 cm

Patrick Hughes
Caught in a Cage
1979
Screenprint
Edition 150
73 cm x 55 cm

Patrick Hughes
Made in Sky
1979
Screenprint
Edition 150
54 cm x 54 cm

Patrick Hughes
Over the Rainbow
1980
Screenprint
Edition 150
45 cm x 54 cm
Flowers Gallery London

Patrick Hughes
Rainbows on a Train
1980
Screenprint
Edition 150
49 cm x 79 cm

Patrick Hughes
Crash Landing
1981
Screenprint
Edition 200
56 cm x 75 cm

Patrick Hughes
Poet's Typewriter
1981
Screenprint
Edition 125
76 cm x 56 cm

Patrick Hughes
A Hughes in Every Room
1982
Screenprint
Edition 200
101.5 cm x 76 cm
Flowers Gallery London

Patrick Hughes
Splash of Colour
1982
Screenprint
Edition 200
77.5 cm x 107 cm
Flowers Gallery London

Patrick Hughes
Print of Prints
1982
Screenprint
Edition 150
77 cm x 108 cm

Patrick Hughes
Colour Process
1984
Screenprint
Edition 250
76 cm x 55 cm
Flowers Gallery London

Patrick Hughes
Falling Blossom
1984
Screenprint
Edition 100
76 cm x 56 cm
Flowers Gallery London

Patrick Hughes
The Studio
1987
Screenprint
Edition 60
80 cm x 60 cm
Flowers Gallery London

Patrick Hughes
Waste Paper
1991
Screenprint
Edition 75
92 cm x 69 cm
Flowers Gallery London

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REVERSPECTIVE
Q: What is reverse perspective, or as you've coined, "reverspective"?
A: Making everything the wrong way round—until the viewer comes along and turns it the right way round.

Q: Does reverse perspective, as you've articulated it, bear any philosophical or conceptual relationship to Byzantine, or inverse, perspective?
A: It does not have anything to do with inverse perspective.

Q: In your online gallery, you have a separate section for multiples. Can you explain to me your definition of a multiple?
A: Multiples are three dimensional prints.

Q: In all of your work, a curiosity leaps out at me: There are no people. Where is the human figure in your work?
A: You are the human figure in my work. If I put human figures into my work, you would not enter it as readily.

Q: What are, for you, the main visual motifs, or conceptual elements, that must be present in your work—what must an image by Patrick Hughes contain visually?
A: An image by me should contain things you can recognize that I can easily manipulate.

Q: It would be impossible for me to choose a "favorite" from your body of work. Do you have a favorite piece—or pieces? Perhaps one or some that you find more successful than others?
A: I particularly enjoy the Venice pieces because there is a lot of architectural detail in the pallazi and they reach all the way down to the water and water is a fluid, so it enables the piece to flow as you walk past it.

Patrick Hughes
Lif's Venice (working title for Venice Observed)
2009
In-progress view
Lif is the name of Hughes's assistant who worked on this painting.
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Q: You have written extensively on the philosophy of puns and oxymorons. What are some of your key insights?
A: A key insight is that the visual and the verbal are similar examples of a mental process. Puns don't particularly interest me, I would be more interested in the play on words. Oxymorons are very interesting as a rhetorical device, like the metaphor, only stronger, more vivid.

Q: When I read "Upon the Pun," I think of Eugene Ionesco's first absurdist play "The Bald Soprano," and its dialogue of non sequiturs borrowed from English language primers. I also think of Michel Foucault's 1968 semiotic treatise "This is Not a Pipe," and Magritte's philosophical tract "Les mots et les images," regarding the relationship of image to language. How would you comment?
A: I love the work of Eugene Ionesco and of Magritte. I think the work of Michel Foucault is worth fuck all (that's a pun). I pointed out before Foucault took to print that "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" is a political remark directed against Le Corbusier and even Courbet—which central point, Foucault completely misses in his circular arguments.⁶

Q: Could you elaborate on the political remark against Le Corbusier and Courbet found in "Ceci n'est pas une pipe"?
A: Courbet signed himself as a pipe, Le Corbusier used it in "Vers une architecture," the last illustration, to make a point that Magritte disagreed with. I guess Le Corbusier knew about Courbet and his pipe. I have published this in André Blavier's little book on Magritte.⁷ It will be in my new book, if it finds a publisher.

Gustave Courbet
Self-Portrait with Pipe
c. 1849
Oil on canvas
45 cm x 37 cm

Gustave Courbet
Pipe (Self-Portrait, sans ideal et sans religion)
1858
Oil on canvas
Private collection

Le Corbusier
A Briar Pipe
Final illustration from Vers une architecture (Toward An Architecture) (1923)

René Magritte
La Trahison des images (The Treachery of Images)
Ceci n'est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe)
1929
Oil on canvas
60 cm x 81 cm
Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
purchased with funds provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection

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Q: I see three distinct categories of wide angle images in your Reverspectives: Gallery spaces and landscapes that could possibly exist in reality, and surreal landscapes which seem to borrow from Magritte's rule book of doors that open incongruently onto fields, oceans or mountains. You have a relationship to Magritte's work philosophically but also visually. Can you talk about that relationship, and explain why you have said that you "never wanted" your work to look like Magritte's?
A: I don't like the look of Magritte's paintings which seem to me to appear trite and old fashioned and not very well done. I like his thought which seems to me penetrating, imaginative and witty. He needed to use his dull technique which belongs to many other people, whereas I am pleased to have discovered an original technique that does not depend on such feeble exemplars.

Q: To my mind, your work presents an interesting dichotomy: It is at once fun and serious. The "lightness"—or perhaps, if I may use the word without being insulting, "fluffiness"—of the images, belies the complex philosophical underpinnings of the works.—Works that challenge the viewer to think about perception, vision and seeing. The works are painted—they cannot move—and yet they do as the viewer interacts with them. Could one say that it your paintings are oxymoronic?
A: I don't think my work is fluffy but it can be light and I think one can combine wit with understanding. Yes, my paintings are oxymoronic. They are contradictory just as I am.

Q: In many ways, it seems that "reverse perspective" could describe the quirky humor evident in your work. Can you talk about the role humor plays in your work?
A: I remember the occasion when I decided to use humor in my work and telling my tutor this in a car journey. It has been said that tragedy is the raw material of comedy. Certainly when one investigates something carefully, one finds humor in the most deadly of circumstances.

Q: It is often noted that humor comes from places of deep pain or tragedy. Could the same be said for you?
A: I haven't suffered deep pain or tragedy yet, but I consider my treatment by my mother when I was a child as being repulsive.

Q: What happened to you as a child—how did your mother mistreat you?
A: My mother mistreated me, and my father and brother, by being very angry, fighting and shouting all the time, she did not help me but hindered me, I left home at 17 to find my own way in the world, getting a job and getting married and having children and so on.

Q: Are you still married?
A: I am married for the third time, to Diane Atkinson, for 23 years, she has a website.

Q: Would you call your Reverspective works paintings, or sculptures, or something in between?
A: I would call my works sculptured paintings.

Q: What are the materials used in the Reverspectives—are they painted in oil?
A: They are painted in oil on wood.

Hughes painting One Artist Sticks Out in 2009. (Image courtesy of the artist.)

Q: Your first investigations of Reverspective began in the mid 60s. Can you tell me what inspired your first reverse perspective piece?—What made you "come off the wall" for lack of a better phrase?
A: In 1964 when I made my first Reverspective I simply wanted to contradict and did not realize it would have an optical effect.

Q: Did you think that the first piece was successful? It seems that you abandoned the sculptural works and returned for many years to two dimensional investigations of color, pattern, shape and line. Were you unhappy with that first piece?
A: It was successful but I had the idea that I should always try and do something different....

Q: What brought you back to Reverspective paintings in the 90s?
A: When I came back to the Reverspective paintings in the 1990s, I had decided that variations on a theme, if the theme was profound enough, was a good strategy.

Q: When I look at your Reverspectives, I see the incorporation of works by a variety of artists—Matisse, Mondrian, Damien Hirst, Man Ray, Magritte and lots and lots of Warhol. You have even appropriated from yourself in "Hues" (2001), but the works of others included in your pieces seem to transcend direct appropriation. Can you talk about the role of appropriation in your work?
A: When I appropriate in my work, I sometimes do it because I like the artist, sometimes because I don't like the artist—I don't like Mondrian, I find him a Christian moralist—I don't like Damian Hirst, or Warhol, but I know they are known and liked by many other people; and happily for me, they make boxes.

Q: I would venture to say that your Reverspectives are both a reinvention of Pop Art and an extension of Op Art—"more-Warhol-than-Warhol" is a phrase that comes to mind. How would you comment?
A: Op art was a mistake, and Pop Art was a mistake and Hop Art would be a mistake. My work is so good that it does not need an umbrella; it can stand in the full light of the sun.

Patrick Hughes
Cows & Brillo's (working title for Warholiday)
2008
In-progress view
According to Hughes, all work-in-progress titles are just for reference and do not have any significant meaning.
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

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PROCESS AND INSPIRATION
Q: What inspires your work?
A: The fear of death.

Q: Can you take me through the process of creating one of your reverse perspective pieces—from concept to completion? I'm imagining that there is a lot of math involved.
A: I ask Jason to make me a wooden shape according to my system of angles, which I worked out a long while ago and is very simple. He does a bit of geometry but not much.

Q: How do you conceptualize a new piece? Do the shapes or images come first? Or perhaps the visual pun comes first? Do you create small-scale maquettes?
A: So the shape comes first, often enough. Sometimes the image comes before the shape but I can squeeze a lot of images into many of the shapes I use.

Q: Does your process include a digital workflow?—Either computer-aided design (CAD) or some other software?
A: Donna does all the digital work to squeeze Venice into perspective.

Q: Who are Jason and Donna?
A: Jason Parker makes my shapes, Donna Smith does the computer work.

Q: It would be really interesting to compare your preliminary sketches and drawings to a completed work.—Would you be willing to show them to me?
A: My sketches in my sketch book are rather superficial. I could show you my sketches but they are in my book.

Pages from Hughes's sketchbook showing new ideas for works, and notes for Donna Smith, his graphic designer, and Jason Parker, his carpenter who makes the shapes.
(Images courtesy of the artist.)

Q: How long does it typically take for you to complete a piece?
A: It typically takes the studio six weeks to complete a piece.

Q: Do you build and paint the forms entirely on your own, or do you employ assistants?
A: I have five assistants.

Q: What is the most unusual tool in your toolbox?
A: I don't know.

Q: The foundational structural element of the Reverspectives is the pyramid. Can you talk a bit about this shape and why it is so important?
A: The pyramid is the pyramid of sight. It is based on the fact that light moves in straight lines, and the point of infinity seems to be all around us.

Q: Each face of the pyramids is painted in perspective too. Does the drafting of perspective within perspective become a challenge?
A: It's easy to draw things in perspective when you know how.

Patrick Hughes
Varsarely (working title for The Victor)
2008
In-progress view
Named for the Hungarian-born French "Father of Op-Art," Victor Varsarely, only the sky remained to be finished at the stage this piece was photographed.
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Q: Have you ever experimented with other structures—cubes or cylinders, for example—in your pieces?
A: I have tried a negative cylinder once. I didn't like it.

Q: What didn't you like about the negative cylinder?
A: I did not like the negative cylinder because unlike perspective it does not refer to infinity.

Q: If you were to take me on a tour of your studio, what would I see?
A: There are half a dozen rooms, some large some small, 14 easels, many saws, hundreds of brushes, twenty chairs, twenty tables, lots of things. It is considered to be rather tidy for a studio.

Two views of Hughes's studio on Great Eastern Street in London. Upper photograph: Easels and paints on a table. This is the street level, with a south facing window on the right. When people stop to look in the window, watching the activity inside, Hughes told The Independent, "I'm like a whore in an Amsterdam brothel."⁸ Lower photograph: Books, tables and a seating area are located on the floor below in the basement. Hughes lives in a flat above his studio.
(Images courtesy of the artist.)

Q: Can you tell me a bit about your commissioned pieces? How does your process differ when creating your own work, or one that has been commissioned?—Are you free to make whatever you want, or does the commissioner become your client and provide the direction of the work?
A: I do commissions three or four times a year. I am happy to try and do what people want.

Q: Who is the person or organization that typically commissions your pieces?
A: Typically the person who commissions a piece is extremely rich.

Patrick Hughes
Ayyam Gallery
July 2009
Oil on wood
93 cm x 167 cm x 38 cm
Commissioned for the Dubai villa of Ayyam Gallery's managing partner Hisham Samawi, the painting depicts "the actual space [the gallery] occupies in Al Quoz." It hangs in Samawi's master bedroom.⁹
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Nutty Slack
(For Patrick Wildgust)
August 2009
Oil on wood
66 cm x 147 cm x 20 cm
Commissioned for "The Black Page" exhibition at Shandy Hall (Shandy Hall Gallery, Coxwold, York) to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the publication of Volumes I and II of Tristram Shandy by Lawrence Sterne.¹⁰
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

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CRITICISM
Q: What has been the critical reaction to your work?
A: The critical reaction to my work has been largely silence, critics, who are nincompoops usually concentrate on what is merely fashionable or deeply virtuous.

Q: Have you ever received a "bad notice" for one of your shows? And if you have, how do you handle the negative reviews?
A: When I get a bad notice I write to the critic to remonstrate with them.

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THE FUTURE
Q: May I have a sneak peek of what you are working on now?
A: I am working on Amsterdam, Picasso's "Baboon and Young," and a portrait of Derren Brown.

Pablo Picasso
Baboon and Young
October 1951 (cast 1955)
Bronze
53.3 cm x 33.3 cm x 52.7 cm
Museum of Modern Art, Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund

Q: What are some image-ideas on your list that you have yet to investigate?
A: There are image ideas on my list, but I can't remember them just now.

Q: Do you have any upcoming shows?
A: I am showing in Miami and New York. My shows are on my website, or they will be, they are separate shows lasting a month or so, one starts December 2nd, the New York one, December 7th at Flowers New York.

Q: How do you transport your Reverspectives for your shows, and store them between shows?
A: I do not transport my work, that is done by the gallery or galleries. They are usually stored by the gallery. I have some storage myself.

Q: Do you typically sell every piece that you create?
A: I typically sell almost all of them.

Q: I'm wondering, also, if a piece of yours has ever been damaged in transit.
A: Very rarely damaged, and easy enough to mend.¹¹

Q: Lastly, what is one thing that you know now that you wish someone had told you when you were first starting out as an artist?
A: To pay more attention to advice, to be as sensible as I am now. I also wish that I had left the country for America, the land of the free.

In one of his last emails to me, he wrote: "Paul Klee was childish, so am I, occurred to me, one has to keep in touch with one's inner child."
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GALLERY

Patrick Hughes
Baboon and Dog
October 2010
Oil on wood
108 cm x 123 cm x 30 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
The Palace of Alice
September 2010
Oil on wood
74 cm x 181 cm x 24 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Venetian Volumes
September 2010
Oil on wood
77 cm x 173 cm x 28 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Warholiness
August 2010
Oil on wood
74 cm x 181 cm x 24 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
The History of Sculpture
April 2010
Oil on wood
70 cm x 175 cm x 24 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Library Labyrinth
March 2010
Oil on wood
76 cm x 171 cm x 26 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
High Water
February 2010
Oil on wood
76 cm x 181 cm x 21 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Round the Block
December 2009
Oil on wood
71 cm x 171 cm x 20 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Wide Open
December 2009
Oil on wood
61 cm x 127 cm x 24 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Just In Case
October 2009
Oil on wood
66 cm x 147 cm x 20 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
One Artist Sticks Out
August 2009
Oil on wood
132 cm x 49 cm x 20 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Venice Observed
August 2009
Oil on wood
61 cm x 186 cm x 23 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Photorealism
July 2009
Oil on wood
58 cm x 119 cm x 12 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Andy Glimpsed
April 2009
Oil on wood
53 cm x 157 cm x 26 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Leafing Through
April 2009
Oil on wood
70 cm x 170 cm x 25 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
In Books
September 2008
Oil on wood
44 cm x 36 cm x 13 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
The Red Sox (Sketch)
June 2008
Oil on wood
65 cm x 148 cm x 20 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
The Emergence of the Hole
February 2008
Oil on wood
147 cm x 66 cm x 19 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Museum Ludwig
February 2008
Oil on wood
99 cm x 250 cm x 28 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
The Shark Has Pretty Teeth, Dear
October 2007
Oil on wood
119 cm x 257 cm x 53 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Salmagundi
May 2007
Oil on wood
158 cm x 66 cm x 18 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

Patrick Hughes
Going Round the Art Institute of Chicago
April 2007
Oil on wood
244 cm x 96 cm x 35 cm
(Image courtesy of the artist.)

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Notes:

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