Chip Hughes debuts solo exhibition at Kerry Schuss gallery in New York

Chip Hughes presents his first solo exhibition at Kerry Schuss gallery in New York's Lower East Side, running from September 8 to October 20, 2013. The show features labor-intensive, obsessive-compulsive abstract works that incorporate embedded text, reflecting Hughes's background in artist comics. His standout piece, Drinks (2012), is noted for its ambitious structure and freer touch, with pulsating color patches and zigzagging lines. Hughes, born in 1986 and a recent graduate of the Maryland Institute, creates compositions that involve fully resolved graphite studies before painting. The gallery, located at 34 Orchard Street, is known for showcasing Outsider Art, providing context for Hughes's work, which references folk art and fabric. Critics draw parallels to the "termite" aesthetic described by Manny Farber, with influences from James Siena's algorithmic abstraction and Bruce Pearson's psychedelic text treatments. The exhibition highlights a division between pencil and ink skills from the graphics milieu, positioning Hughes's art as a contemporary take on Paul Klee for the cyber age.