Lot Essay
In common with Jean Spencer and other artists who began working in a systematised constructive mode in the 1960s, Hughes' work at this time mainly consisted of shallow monochrome reliefs. Maquette for Aluminium Relief and other related works also made use of unpainted industrial materials - a feature of historic constructivist philosophy. This maquette (for a larger work) also features an aspect frequently seen in Hughes' work - the juxtaposition of the same or similar forms to set up what Hughes termed a visual dialogue. Here, the relatively simple geometric image on the left is abutted by the same, but inverted, image on the right. By this inversion and by then aligning the bottom edge of the two aluminium squares, the whole work is unified and the visual relationship between the two halves of the work becomes more dynamic.
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