Bio
Aylsa McHugh lives and works in Naarm (Melbourne). In 2002, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. She has exhibited widely in Naarm (Melbourne), Djubuguli/Cadi (Sydney), Boorloo (Perth), London and Japan. Recent group exhibitions include Melbourne Now 2023, National Gallery of Victoria, Whence it Came, Divisions Gallery, Here on it, Brunswick St Gallery, A1 Darebin Art Salon, Bundoora Homestead, and CCP Ilford Salon, CCP Fitzroy (Jan edition) Solo shows include Shadowlands, Boadle Hall, Incinerator Gallery , Aberfeldie, Hero, Public Art Commission, and Persona, Rubicon ARI, Melbourne. She was a finalist in the Blake Prize in 2024, and has received numerous awards and prizes including the Abstract Encouragement Award and Best Domestic Space at the Linden Postcard Show, Linden New Art, and was a finalist in the Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award, Lethbridge Gallery and the Waverly Printmaking Prize, Waverly Woollahra Art School.
Her work is held in private and public collections locally and internationally, including The National Gallery of Victoria, (NGV) the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and The City of Melbourne Collection.
Documentation
For Luminous, Aylsa McHugh's series of work is an attempt to represent the ineffable, transient experiences and feelings. These monochrome images capture female figures, some who appear to be dancers, their graceful postures in contrast to the harsh structure of the modernist architecture background. McHugh evokes the supernatural by rendering the bodies transparent, often distorted or levitating in the foreground, they appear as an apparition, a ghostly presence floating, enmeshed within the architecture. The resulting images are haunting—the figures suspended in ‘the act of becoming visible’ reflect a transient state of being, or the liminal space between sleep and waking.
Here, the artist provides a space—disjointed and harmonious—to visualise her subconscious or spiritual realm. Increasingly, we are exploring spiritual philosophies to examine our own beliefs and to make sense of the current moment. McHugh’s images remain deliberately ambiguous allowing the viewer to create their own narrative.
