Richard Dean Hughes (b. 1987, Chester, UK. Lives and works in Manchester, UK) is an artist exploring the fragile and increasingly frustrated relationship between modernity, nature, tradition and history. Working in an array of materials including resin, glass, metal, plaster, dust and newspaper, Hughes incorporates traditional processes alongside new technologies, such as hand-carving and industrial fabrication, heat-pressed imagery and digital stereo-lithography.
Central to his work is the relationship between reality and illusion, object and image, temporality and the uncanny, a series of juxtapositions and affects coming together in often large-scale, manipulated trompe l’oeil sculptures. Existing in what he describes as ‘the realm of the hypothetical’, Hughes’ work evokes feelings of regression, inertia and virtuality alongside those of security, comfort and desire.
Hughes graduated from his BA Sculpture at Manchester School of Art in 2009. Recent solo presentations of his work include Richard Dean Hughes, Xxijra Hii, London, UK (2025); Spherical Sadness, Piccalilli Gallery, London, UK (2024); Twelve Thousand, with Nicola Ellis, Arena Gallery, Manchester, UK (2024); Everything at Once, with Amba Sayal Benett, Generation and Display, London (2022); Subliminal Thaw, Night Time Story, Los Angeles, US (2021); and Vent, 9A Gallery, Todmorden, UK (2021). In 2015 Hughes was shortlisted for the XerXes Sculpture Prize at Serpentine Galleries, London.
Recent group exhibitions include And the Safe Spots Become Impassable, Ethan Yip / Yisi Li, Hong Kong, CN (2024); A Mirror to Vanity, Brooke Bennington, London, UK (2024); This be the Verse, Xxijra Hii, London, UK (2023); Things Falls Apart, the Centre Cannot Hold, Tabula Rasa Gallery, London, UK (2023); Ubiquitous no.14, Tube Gallery, Palma, ES (2023); Centre of the Periphery, Pipeline Gallery, London, UK (2023); Off Trail, Air Gallery, Manchester, UK (2021); Soft Display, Division Of Labour, Worcester, U (2021); When Shit Hits The Fan, Guts Gallery, London, UK (2020); When Space Sits Still, A Better Feeling’ Paris, FR (2020); and Millenialism, Paradise Works, Manchester, UK (2019).