William Hughes

@will.hughesss William Hughes

William Hughes (b.1999, Coventry) is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in a semi- abstracted way around themes of memory and remembering. He draws on specific memories and nostalgic material from his family’s history, influencing his multimedia approach to working. He works with often discarded and forgotten material to depict intimate and fragile themes.

“Memory is a delay. Memory is a fragment. Memory is of the body that passed. Memory is the trace of a wave goodbye made with a slightly clenched fist. ” (Robert Morris, 1994).

How do we read memories? Hughes’ practice seeks to explore processes of memory and remembering, reflecting and drawing ideas from nostalgic material from his family. Working with multimedia processes, he creates works of abstraction and suggestion set in spaces that trigger feelings of familiarity in the audience. Processes of abstract marking, texture built through layering, and its residual traces, depict confusion and ambiguity. He uses materials found or inherited; through

reclaiming old furniture, photographs and equipment; to using found and weathered material. Hughes worked in collaboration with his late grandfather, using his equipment, his memories, to create pieces. As his Grandfathers memory gradually worsened, the work mirrored him; gradually becoming more deteriorated.

Remnant (2020)

Size: 81cm x 101.5cm

Untitled (Forgetting - Forgotten) (2020)

Size: 59cm x 24cm

Medium: Mixed Media on underlay