American abstract artist Farida Hughes (b. Rochester, New York) lives in Maryland and maintains her studio in the city of Baltimore. She is known for creating vibrant abstract paintings showing overlapping shapes of bold colors. Decidedly abstract art, her lively and intriguing compositions are inspired by the poetics and observations of human relationships and the beauty found in shared stories and common experiences. She paints with a mixture of resin and oil paint to create lush, translucent surfaces that mimic the texture of glass. Her glass-like surfaces also glow and change as they catch and diffuse surrounding light, forming exciting passages and edges of color.

“My work reflects on interactions between people. I think about our unique shapes and the histories that influence them, our movements within the spaces of the world, and those common, shared experiences that overlap and connect us.”

Farida Hughes is an American abstract artist known as a painterly painter. Her works demonstrate a painterly application, showing the evidence and traces of an artist’s attention to hand-made work. She builds the images up in a slow process layer by layer. In her work, she considers themes of displacement, movement, crossing boundaries and bridges, and of bodies existing in between identities. Thus the paintings contain layered, floating, and overlapping forms.

Though abstract, the concepts in the artwork of Farida Hughes are inspired by real stories she collects from the world and from individuals alike. This is most acutely evidenced in the ongoing “Blends” Series. The “Blends” series of paintings began as an experiment to use the content as a way into abstraction and has grown to a lovely collection of historic stories that touch points worldwide. The paintings develop from solicited lists of real peoples’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds, as well as the stories that come along with the offering of those. The abstract portraits explore identity issues through formal investigation and the glass-like surfaces also offer a reflection of the viewer which adds depth to the project. Find the “Blends Series” in a separate portfolio on this website. All other series can be filtered in the portfolio titled “Portfolios“.

Paintings by Farida Hughes are held in public and private collections throughout the United States. She is represented by Walker Fine Art in Denver, Colorado, and Bozzuto Greene Art in Lutherville, Maryland, and also exhibits widely across the United States. Farida has created art for home or business for several private, hospitality, and corporate spaces. She has recently completed commissions in Washington DC, Baltimore, and Northern Virginia and accepts inquiries for new work. Contact the artist directly for inquiries on the colorful contemporary paintings highlighted on this website.