Nathalie Hugues

A significant portion of Nathalie Hugues’ work gives evidence of the way she looks at the more or less fortuitous assemblages and interactions of elements found in the public space. Her work is the expression of an interest in accidental compositions, which she captures with photography and transfigures through painting. In her pictures, reality is laid bare and shown with humour. Fragments of a suburban area, of a municipal pool, of a local garage, of garden or window ornaments… The excesses of the domestic space are framed with precision and painting has a part to play in the existence of these worlds that usually go unnoticed. “They are portraits, the artist explains. Portraits of a bush, a street lamp, a guardrail, or a fuse box.” Like an explorer of landscapes, she works on site, discovering her subjects as she goes for long walks through towns and villages. Nathalie Hugues also likes to tell stories by making films, in which she might for instance talk about the (super) heroic fate of her paintings or of a strange reinterpretation of Aztec history.