Following her BA in Fine Art from the National College of Art and Design Dublin in 2006, Jane went on to complete an MA in Environmental Art at Aalto University Helsinki in 2012.

Her work relates to social history and is largely researched from old photographic sources. Hughes paints from images collected in libraries, encyclopaedias, historical books, flea markets and newspaper archives; taking disregarded photographs and reincarnating them as paintings.

The artist states:

‘I have a deep fascination for discovering old abandoned photographs from different parts of the world and rescuing them from obscurity, I am intrigued by the way certain images were fabricated to illicit various responses, such as idealism in a leader. I am interested in the traces of historical documentation, the invented or distorted image, the banal and the iconic. I am attracted to layers of histories, the parallel lives of people who once lived and the places they once inhabited. I want to encourage collective remembering through my painterly investigations’.

Featuring a series of 18 painted works, Places, Histories and Other Matters will be on display at Toradh Gallery in Ashbourne Library and Cultural Centre from 18th November 2020 and will remain until 10th January 2020.

Further information can be obtained by contacting the Arts Office at artsoffice@meathcoco.ie or 0469097414.