Aylsa McHugh

Artist Biography

Aylsa McHugh lives and works in Naarm. In 2002 she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Aylsa has exhibited in Naarm (Melbourne), Djubuguli/Cadi (Sydney), Boorloo (Perth), London and Japan and her work is
held in private collections locally and internationally. Her practice incorporates a variety of media and draws from a wide range of influences including architecture, modernism, sculpture, fashion and film. Most recently she has been utilising collage, appropriating images found in magazines and books to create unsettling and elegant juxtapositions. These assemblages are compelling and perverse, disjointed and harmonious, a celebration of the uncanny and strangely beautiful.

Artist statement

Aylsa is interested in how the recontextualizing and combining of found imagery can lend itself to ambiguous interpretations. Her recent practice sees her pairing images of vintage hair models with images of sculptures from the modernist period. The resultant assemblages, which enact simultaneously unsettling and elegant juxtapositions, inhabit an uncanny space and a narrative emerges that is divergent from the intention of the source material. Aylsa is interested in the innate tendency of human psychology to find connections, patterns and familiarity in inanimate objects.
Referencing a commonly occurring perception delusion, known as pareidolia, (a type of apophenia) that demands us to see order where none exists.

All enquiries: aylsacmchugh@gmail.com

WEBSITE: aylsamchugh.com

INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/aylsa_mchugh/

All works ©Aylsa McHugh