SARA LEE HUGHES

ARTIST BIO

Sara Lee was born in Dallas, Texas in 1968.  She  graduated Texas State University (formerly Southwest Texas State University) with a BFA in theatrical design. After college she moved to the east coast, working as a scenic painter for television, film and theater. In 1995 she began studies in the classical methods of drawing, painting and printmaking at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where she earned a certificate in painting and printmaking.  In 2003 she received a fellowship to the Vermont Studio where she developed a body of work around the life of her father. The processes and work created during her month long residency with Vermont Studio have been pivotal to the growth of her work over the last 20 years. After Vermont, she moved to New York and earned her Masters in Painting from Pratt Institute.  She moved back to Texas in 2008, sustaining herself through scenic painting and teaching. Currently she has a full studio practice and teaches art at Lockhart Montessori School.

Sara Lee draws inspiration from the representational painters Antonio Lopez Garcia, Bo Bartlett, Edward Hopper, the varied works of William Kentridge and the figurative paintings of Jenny Saville. The skills she accumulated in theater and film continue to inform her process and composition. Motherhood in 2012, provided a new lens in which she views the world and her work.

Sara Lee lives and works in Central Texas with her husband Michael and their daughter Marlowe. 


ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings are representational narratives influenced by my growing up in Texas during the 1970’s and 80’s with divorced parents. 

They highlight my experience and the knowledge I gained navigating the differences between my gay father and my straight mother, the socio-cultural political norms of the era in which they were raised and the socio-cultural political norms of my own generation. 

The paintings rely on my theater experience in theater: I cast myself as the characters. the scenes are composed with attention to direction, costume, lighting and set design. I self reference my work in order to strengthen the meaning of motif and narrative between paintings.  I exaggerate the familiar and make it improbable. Southern colloquialisms along with Pop Culture provide elements of humor. The sense of nostalgia and familiarity is created through my palette which is inspired by vintage magazine ads of the 1940’s, 50’s and 70’s.

All of these elements help nurture a connection between the narrative and the audience.  My intention is to create work that highlights and/or identifies behaviors, values and stereotypes that derive from unquestioned traditions.

Currently I am exploring the attempt, by so many of us, at trying to strike a balance between the need to be our truest selves and the tether of antiquated social expectations, consumer culture and how this experience fits into our country’s broader, social narrative and cultural history.