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To hear Natalya Hughes speak about her work is to witness the confession of a love affair. ‘Sensual’, ‘tactile’ and ‘desirable’ are all terms employed by the artist to discuss her work. Hughes speaks eloquently about the sensuality of oil paint, her joy in its sleek application. Intricate colouring and patterning enhance the beauty, texture and tactility of her work. This sensuality is heightened by the ways in which the artist abstracts and reconfigures her primary sources to leave soft, voluptuous folds that simultaneously allude to and disguise the fleshy forms they once covered.
Hughes’ work is based on the Ukiyo-E prints of Edo period Japan (1603-1867) and the Art Nouveau designs of Aubrey Beardsley (England, 1872-98). The links with these primary sources are strong, visually and thematically, as both the Ukiyo-E and Art Nouveau traditions are deeply entrenched in the language of desire Hughes uses.
Edo period Japan derived its name from its governing city, Edo, a thriving metropolis whose culture emphasized sophistication, fashion and, most of all, pleasure. Within this city was a legal prostitution pleasure quarters, the Yoshiwara. Here, seduction became an elaborate ritual based on style, allusion and charm. Money alone could not necessarily buy a courtesan, and for many, these providers of pleasure became unattainable objects of desire. The mystique of the Courtesan is venerated in many Ukiyo-E prints, their sexuality recorded explicitly in the Shunga (pillow book) prints of the time.
Beardsley’s designs, produced in late-nineteenth-century Victorian England, stem from a similar culture of desire. The Victorian era was outwardly characterised by deep piety but, often inwardly, by a certain hedonism. This is best characterised by the work of the Pre-Raphaelite artists, with whom