THE BEST FREE SHOW IN TOWN

23-11-2006

Birmingham Museum And Art Gallery is currently offering the best free show in town …a magnificent retrospective by eye-bending local artist Patrick Hughes.

Art Gallery regulars may remember a wonderful friezeat the top of the stairs just before you entered the Round Room. It was a painting that seemed to swivel from right to left and back again as you walked past it.

Patrick Hughes, Circular Train, 1971

Patrick Hughes, Superduperspective, 2002. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.

Patrick Hughes, Nature and Culture, 2000

Patrick Hughes, Thanks to Jos de Mey, 1997

That was a Hughes. And this exhibition in the Waterhall not only displays that wonderful work, but the best of the rest from a career spanning 40 years.

Hughes style is dubbed “reverspective”; his paintings stick out from the wall in 3D style, but ironically, the point which is nearest you can actually seem furthest away. This is wonderfully demonstrated in a higgledy-piggledy night street scene, which threatens to punch you in the face if you step too close, but which when viewed from a distance has a woozy, dream-like quality that takes your eye into the far distance. It's like watching the world through beer goggles.

It might be tempting to view Hughes - who was born in Brum in 1939 - as merely “clever”. There's no doubting his fine draughtsmanship, and the technical ingenuity of his work is breathtaking. But I reckon there's more to it than that. Here is an artist unlocking the doors of our perceptions, making us take a fresh look at our surroundings, and tickling our senses as his does so.

Whatever you're ultimate verdict, though, I guarantee that you will get something out of this show. I caught it at lunchtime alongside office workers and a hardhat from a nearby building site, and I've never heard so much spontaneous chatter in an art gallery.

No wonder, it's said to be breaking attendance records in the Waterhall. Check out Hughes “Superduperperspective” and the world will never look the same again.