TRAUMA AND THE SUBLIME

18 Apr-11 May 2024

PV 17 Apr 2024, 6-8.30pm

Turkey, 2023, Carbon on paper. Credit: Shaw Hughes

Overview

Chris Shaw Hughes has been making art about sites of trauma for the last 20 years. Fuelled by the global escalation in violence around the world, he has attempted to draw attention to the practice of making civilians the primary target in all conflicts since the 1930s, through the bombing and shelling of towns and cities. He also looks at the increase in natural disasters, mostly due to climate change, exploring the idea of beauty and the sublime in representations of trauma. Images of contemporary war zones and disasters have become ubiquitous in our media and on mobile phones from the scene of the trauma, so much so that they are barely noticed any more. This exhibition gives viewers the chance to look again through the slow process of drawing, and to try to make sense of a world on the brink.