Patrick Hughes

Patrick Hughes is well-known for his ‘moving pictures’ where he plays with reverse perspective — or ‘reverspective’ — by presenting those parts of the picture that seem farthest away at the nearest point. Hughes’s pioneering work in optical illusion and three-dimensional art blurs the boundaries between painting and sculpture, and has captivated audiences worldwide.

Born in 1939 in Birmingham, England, Hughes studied at the James Graham Day College in Leeds in 1959. His early works were influenced by Surrealism and Dada, and over time, he became increasingly fascinated with the relationship between space, perspective and reality.

This curiosity led him to develop his signature reverspective technique in the 1960s, a concept where the parts of the painting that seem to project outwards are actually the furthest away, creating an optical illusion that seemingly moves as the viewer walks by the pieces. ‘When the principles of perspective are reversed and solidified into sculpted paintings, something extraordinary happens,’ Hughes explained, ‘the mind is deceived into believing the impossible, that a static painting can move of its own accord.’ His ridged panoramas are achieved by constructing pyramid- or wedge-shaped blocks of wood, combined and painted into scenes in each bock.

Hughes held his first exhibition in 1961 and subsequently made his first reverspective, Sticking-out Room, in 1964. In the 1970s, Hughes began working on his rainbow paintings. This joyful and iconic image is replicated widely into prints and postcards. His investigations into perception, illusion and artistic representation have led him to write and collate three books on the visual and verbal rhetoric of the paradox and oxymoron.

Patrick Hughes’s three-dimensional art has been exhibited in numerous prestigious galleries and museums around the world. His works belong in the collections of the Tate Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.