Michael McHugh: Home and Away — Paintings and Glass Sculptures for Sale at Reindeer Antiques
Michael McHugh: Home and Away
Home and Away is the latest exhibition by Australian contemporary artist Michael McHugh, now on show at Reindeer Antiques. Comprising eighteen original works — acrylic paintings on canvas and a new series of hand-crafted glass sculptures — the exhibition marks a significant evolution in McHugh's practice. All works are available for sale.
About the Exhibition
Home and Away was born from a wonderful artist's residency at the 12th-century Château de Cerisay near Le Mans, France, which Michael attended in late 2025. Set against the tonal restraint of a French winter, the château's ancient moat became the generative heart of the work — a threshold between visibility and obscurity, presence and absence. The slow movement of carp beneath the frozen surface introduced a quiet, temporal resilience into McHugh's compositions, while his daily crossing of the bridge gave the work an introspective, transitional rhythm.
Yet the exhibition holds a powerful counterpoint. Just days before arriving in France, McHugh had been immersed in the luminous, kinetic energy of Sydney's Clovelly Beach. That warm, sun-drenched memory became a lingering presence within the paintings — transplanted into the cold austerity of the château, creating a dynamic interplay where warmth and cold, openness and enclosure, coexist in productive tension.
The title Home and Away speaks directly to this duality: the familiar and the foreign, the near and the distant, the remembered and the immediate.
The Paintings
McHugh works in acrylic on canvas, beginning each piece with sustained drawing and observation in nature. Through layered mark-making and nuanced chromatic shifts, his compositions move between crystalline clarity and dense, opaque green — capturing the shifting ecologies of the moat and the luminous memory of the Pacific.
The 2026 paintings in this exhibition include large-scale works such as Aquatic, Faraway, Far-Flung, Flying Colours, and Out of the Blue (each 120 × 240 cm or 120 × 180 cm), alongside mid-scale works including Arrival Time, Group Activity, Red Zone, Midday, Encore, and Green Light.
Each painting is signed and dated on the reverse. McHugh's work has recently appeared on the front cover of Art Collector magazine, and Home and Away marks his first London showing of this body of work.
The Glass Sculptures
Alongside the paintings, McHugh is thrilled to exhibit a new series of glass sculptures — a medium four years in the making. Having explored bronze, ceramic, and 3D printing, McHugh arrived at glass for its unique capacity to carry colour and light. Each piece glows with the refraction of light, translating the aquatic and botanical forms of his paintings into three-dimensional objects.
The glass works — Pacific, Pelagic, Sylvan, Aqueous, and Whirl — stand at 40 cm tall and echo the visual universe of the paintings. Blues and greens dominate, with each sculpture feeling as though a form has stepped free from the canvas.
"For some time I have wanted to imagine shapes and forms coming alive almost as though they have escaped the confines of the canvas stepping out and away from the painting." — Michael McHugh
Every painting and sculpture in Home and Away is available for purchase through Reindeer Antiques. Whether you are an established collector of contemporary Australian art or encountering McHugh's work for the first time, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to acquire original works from a significant new body of practice.
Browse the full Michael McHugh: Home and Away collection →
