Aqueous by Michael McHugh

Aqueous 2026

Glass Sculpture

My painting practice revolves around the creation of new DNA and forms sourced from nature, with layered mark-making where each painting creates an environment inviting the viewer to look beyond the surface of 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.  These three dimensional glass forms in shades of blues and green sit boldly, having been created with the same focus of each painting with extensive drawing and research,  echoing the universe they have transported from. It has taken me four years to realise these glass forms as I had worked with a range of different materials like bronze, ceramic and even 3D printing, searching for just the right material in bringing my thinking to life. Finally arriving at the potential of glass making, for me it provides a strong sense of colour and light as each piece glows with the refraction of light hitting each piece, making this 3D experience the perfect moment of intrigue and interest, all within the collective universe of Michael McHugh. 

This compelling body of work marks a significant evolution in Michael McHugh’s art practice, emerging from an intensive studio inquiry during his late 2025 residency at the 12th-century Château de Cerisay near Le Mans. Set within the poetic stillness of a French winter, the landscape's tonal restraint became a catalyst, sharpening his sensitivity to surface, tone and the poetics of subtle transformation.

Central to this inquiry is the château’s surrounding moat, a generative threshold between visibility and obscurity, presence and absence. The slow movement of carp beneath the frozen surface introduces a temporal dimension of quiet resilience, while McHugh’s daily, ritualistic crossing of the bridge inflects the work with an introspective, transitional rhythm.
Rather than engaging in direct representation, McHugh’s paintings operate within the realm of speculative abstraction. His compositions are built through layered mark-making and nuanced chromatic shifts, capturing the moat's shifting ecologies and transitioning from crystalline clarity to a dense, opaque green.

This inquiry is enriched by a powerful counterpoint: the artist’s lived experience of Sydney’s Clovelly Beach days prior. This luminous, kinetic memory becomes a lingering presence within the works. Transplanted into the cold austerity of the château, it creates a dynamic interplay where warmth and cold, openness and enclosure, coexist in productive tension.
Ultimately, Home & Away stands as a sophisticated meditation on duality, constructing a visual archaeology where past and present collapse. McHugh approaches environment as a fluid, psychological construct, transforming lived experience into an immersive visual language that invites us to look beyond the surface and into the depths of both place and self.

Michael paints in acrylic and his creative practice stars with studying and drawing in nature. Gradually these drawings inspire the start of a painting. Over many hours Michael gradually builds layers of colour and detail bringing his paintings to life.