Member Profile: Jennifer G Hughes

closeWhen I shoot photographs I'm given the chance to reclaim a sense of awe, curiosity, and sense of “other”. It's a connection with the natural world, with the human experience, and perhaps what has come before. Artist Statement As a mixed media artist and photographer I bring a love of storytelling and a penchant for the offbeat to my artwork from a career in documentary film, television, and event design. Through photography I’m able to catch glimpses of the ethereal, and to reclaim that pure sense of awe and curiosity that tend to get lost in the everyday. It’s my way of staying connected with the natural world, with the human experience, and perhaps what has come before. I may hang back unobtrusively, waiting for the subject to tell me their story without words - an expressive face, a private, nuanced exchange between two people, or perhaps a revealing gesture of the body. Other times, I actively seek out these moments, venturing out to the woods with camera in hand to poke around abandoned houses, hang upside down from trees, and wade around in creek beds. I’ll meander through city streets in search of “treasures” - vibrant wall murals tucked away between gas meters in an alleyway, tiny handprints pressed into a building cornerstone, or a secret message scrawled in graffiti on the back of a hidden door. It feels like these things were left for me to find, as if they were a reward for taking the time to really see… I like to play with scale, perspective, and context, and through this an object can shed it’s old “self” and take on a new identity. An ordinary oak tree becomes a dancer in mid-leap through the shape of its trunk and tilt of its branches. A pile of rusty scrap metal becomes a magnificent sculpture. A tiny insect becomes a larger than life creature that dominates the frame. With every image I capture, I offer a story to the viewer. Whether you are seeing your own story in it or bearing witness to mine, you enter into a dynamic exchange. It’s this exchange that drives me to create, to explore, and to uncover… www.conjureimages.com IG -@conjureimages FB - Conjure Images Selected Exhibitions 2017 "Glimpse”, Florham Park Library Gallery, Florham Park (Solo) 2017 “Printemps”,Cuozzo Salon & Gallery, Madison (Solo) 2017 “Culture Crawl”, Featured Artist, Visual Art Center of NJ 2018 “Arts and Cars”, Visual Art Center of NJ 2018 NJ Photography Forum, Watchung Art Center,NJ 2018 “Graffiti & Glam” Featured Artist, Visual Art Center of NJ 2018 “Open Orange”, The Gallery @ Valley Arts 2018 Member Show, Visual Art Center of NJ 2019 “Passage”, VACNJ Gallery Annex, Summit (Solo) 2019 “Open Orange” The Gallery @ Valley Arts 2019 Member Show, Visual Art Center of NJ (Honorable Mention) 2019 Artful Bean, The Gallery@Valley Arts, (Solo) 2019 “Abstracted Reality”, PWP Member Show, Atlantic Gallery, Chelsea, NYC 2019 “Sculpting with Light”, PWP Member Show Atlantic Gallery, Chelsea, NYC 2020 “Renewal”, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY 2020 “Chaos & Calm”, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY 2020 Member Show, Center for Photography Woodstock 2020 “Poetry of the Ordinary”, Photoplace Gallery, Middlebury, VT 2020 “#ICP Concerned: Global Images for Global Crisis", International Center for Photography 2020 “Finding Joy”, Photoplace Gallery, Middlebury, VT 2021 “Less is More: Small Works 2021”, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY 2021 “Love or Something Like It”, Core New Art Space, Lakewood,CO 2021 “Imagination Is Your Freedom”,Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY 2021 “The Magic of Water”, Cultural Center of Cape Cod, MA 2021 “Womyn’s Werq”, Studio Montclair, Montclair, NJ 2021 “The Horse in Art”, Belmar Art Center, Belmar, NJ 2021 “Funhouse: Art of the Surreal, Fantastic, and Bizarre, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie NY Education I received my degree in film and photography from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, and earned my B.A. in psychology and anthropology from the University of Vermont. I have also studied at the International Center for Photography in New York City. I have studied at the Carl Jung Institute in Zurich and Kusnacht, Switzerland, La Sorbonne in Paris, and the conducted field research in rainforest ecology / primatology at La Suerte Research Station in Costa Rica.