Rowena Hughes: Soft Parallels

Rowena Hughes, a recent Slade MA graduate, has already captured the attention of many critics. Within her Soft Parallels show, she layers mathematical forms over found material resulting in suggestive new works

On entering the ROOM, tucked away alongside one of Shoreditch’s many industrial back alleys, I was pleasantly surprised at the space’s ability to transport me from the bustle of East London to a quiet space of contemplation filled with the modern reflection of Rowena Hughes’ Soft Parallels collection. This transformation was assisted by the fact that for a long while I seemed to be the only person in the building.

Hughes, one of the most recent talents to emerge from the well established Slade School of Fine Art, explores the existence of simple geometric form within ornate structure as well as shapes and patterns found within nature itself. For instance, I was struck by the presence of mathematical figures suggested by works such as Margins Like Columns, in which Hughes uses paint over a found image to stress the arithmetical construction of a room, leading to the realisation that form entirely defines the space. The dialogue between mathematics and nature is also evident in one of Hughes’ untitled works; a spherical print echoing its found backdrop of a hillside village. Although the curling nature of the shape printed was a manmade geometrical construct, it was entirely reflective of the curvature of the rolling countryside hills.

The way in which Hughes prints geometric shapes on top of existing photographic images inject a certain degree of movement into the images. For instance, the downward progression of squares in Converging Part One suggests a tumbling motion. Similarly another of her untitled pieces bombards the viewer with thickening sharp lines travelling through what seems to be ancient Greek ruins, insinuating something akin to a flight path. The overall effect of this suggested movement is to breathe new life into the previously discarded images and found texts

For me, perhaps one of the more important messages Hughes suggests within her work was to be found within Dipole Moments, inkjet prints on a found textbook. Whilst I found it greatly satisfying to interact physically with the book myself, I was also impressed by Hughes’ ability to bring new relevance to an out of print physics textbook from 1953. Moreover, I felt that Hughes’ work with found and often out-dated texts maintained a consistent relationship with image; generations may come and go but as long as we can use our senses, people will always feel a connection to aesthetics. I found this relationship between image and text to be the most poignant and effective in Hughes’ Flight, two birds printed on a well-chosen page from a dictionary. The implied flight movement of the birds against a backdrop of words such as “meander”, “meaning” and “meaningless” suggests an escape from literal meaning, begging the viewer to question whether they too should sometimes fly away from language as a form of expression

Overall, this exhibition is truly worth a visit; it is a chance to experience great work from a talented emerging artist for free before she undoubtedly becomes more widely recognised

Rebecca Felgate

September 2011