Working with paper constructions and photography, Niamh Hughes creates fantastical artworks that evoke a jocular menace. Hughes's assemblages actualise heterotopic spaces the viewer interacts with in a way that explores Surrealist delirium. The imagery introduces parallels between phantasmagoria and the existentialism that comes with developing a successful art practice as an undergraduate. Based in paper cutting processes, the work can vary from an enveloping large-scale to a minute intricacy. Hughes aims to reshape the pop-up/ paper-cut art form in an immersive sense. Hughes’s aesthetics subvert the traditional dark tones of the gothic genre, focusing on making statements with the hyperbolic pulp visuals and practical effects of B-Movie horror. Taking from a broad set of influences, such as Nobuhiko Obayashi, SWOON, Neil Gaiman, and Janet Mullarney, Hughes’s work draws you into an escapist fantasy, creating a bizarre form of immersive storytelling
1 - Image contains a 'puppet' built from a photo manipulation used in a larger paper assembly / Niamh Hughes