ShowUp, in collaboration with curator Rosa Leff, is presenting Chop Talk - an engaging series of discussions featuring artists from the Cutting Edge: Contemporary Papercutting exhibition. Guided by Rosa Leff, these hour-long dialogues aim to provide audiences with an in-depth understanding of each artist's practice, inspirations, and the techniques incorporated in their work. Chop Talk will be held biweekly via Instagram Live, broadcasted from ShowUp, Rosa Leff, and the individual artists' Instagram pages.
Mark Curtis Hughes (b.1987) is a Uk based Paper artist. Originally from Leicester, he studied Printmaking at the University of the West of England in Bristol. Mark began papercutting in 2010 as part of his process for making woodcut prints and gradually the paper took over. Mark was a secondary school art teacher for ten years in Central London and he now teaches at Wellingborough School in Northamptonshire. Alongside his teaching he has built up his papercutting practice and exhibits nationally and internationally.
Papercutting is like excavating an image, it’s an exploration and there is something very ancient and weathered in the completed piece. For Mark, the act of making is as important as the outcome, by the nature of unearthing the image, and the improvisation which goes into it, it is impossible to anticipate what the image will look like until it is complete.
Mark’s work explores the layers of complexity in the city, ranging from chaos built on chaos to the little pockets of calm. His work tries to capture the nature of interaction, navigation and passing moments within the confusion and depth of the urban environment. This world is all about flashing images and singular moments, recorded or remembered as papercuts they are uncovered and become artefacts.
Follow ShowUp on Instagram and tune in on to this live broadcast on June 15th at 10am EST. There is no registration for this event, but if you’d like to set a reminder for yourself to tune in to Instagram at that time, click the button below!