Passages, by Amy Hughes

These small oil paintings begin with the Hughes’ own body, specifically the parts that are often overlooked, corrected, or quietly judged. Painted at an intimate scale, the works focus on fleshy passages such as stretch marks, soft folds, and areas shaped by pressure, time, and change. They are fragments rather than whole figures, allowing the body to appear not as an image to be consumed, but as material to be encountered.

As a woman, the Hughes’ relationship to her body is never neutral. It is lived from the inside while also shaped by external expectations around how a body should look, behave, age, or take up space. These paintings sit in that overlap, holding tenderness and discomfort at the same time, and acknowledging both attachment to the body and the ways it becomes a site of scrutiny.

By working slowly in oil and staying close to the surface of skin, Hughes allows marks to remain visible rather than corrected. The paintings resist polish and spectacle. Instead, they invite a quieter, closer looking that makes space for vulnerability, materiality, and the reality of a body that is felt before it is seen.