Jason Hughes Solos at Curator's Office with 'To Beat the Devil'

Friday, 03 November 2006 07:33

Washington, DC - To Beat the Devil: Jason Hughes presents conceptual works in diverse media by celebrated young artist and curator Jason Hughes.  The exhibition includes a sculpture, a work on paper, a photograph and eight collages that mine issues of locating the real self within the socially constructed self.  Using such historic tropes as the labyrinth, the mandala, and "saintly" depictions of allegorical figures, Hughes extends his personal concerns into the realm of the social and even the political.  Through precise design and painstaking craftsmanship, his deeply personal struggles become abstracted into a visual language that is accessible to all given its familiar presence in cultural history.  Less personal biography than acknowledgment of the thorny issues that face and form all humans, Hughes sets up a contemplative environment that engages the viewer on a more symbolic level.  On exhibit Saturday, November 11 - Saturday, December 30, 2006.

Preoccupied with maze making from a very young age, Jason Hughes has an innate connection to the metaphoric possibilities offered up by classical mandala and labyrinth motifs.  Within his sculptures and works on paper, his aesthetic process mirrors the Buddhist monastic progression in mandala painting of working from within the center and moving outwards along a proscribed pattern, replete with structured quadrants.  In the centerpiece sculpture, Untitled (army men mandala) he also incorporates color symbolism that relates to the color plinths depicted in his collages that portray "Vices and Virtues."  Giving form to the invisible is what all artists do, yet engaging rigid ancient forms with twenty-first century human intent forces us to reinterpret these forms that we take for granted as part of the canon of both spiritual imagery and material pop culture.  Hughes tweaks the historicity of his appropriated familiar motifs through his focus on secular personal psychology, as opposed to proscribed spiritual systems or church and state doctrines that usually motivate such imagery.  There is wit and humor and sobriety within the greater body of work as it invites us to monitor the constant emotional and moral perambulations within our own personal and political selves.  The devil is always present.  It's just a matter of who is watching, who cares, and who is listening.