JoAnn Hughes

Below you will find the artist’s statements, her own words. JoAnn Hughes passed away November 1, 2015. As her work lives on in the world, her memory lives in our hearts.

I came late to painting with a background in both psychology and theology and my experience as a woman, a mother; I paint to think, to speak -- it is essential to my sense of well-being and my commitment to others and to our world; It is my work.

Painting is, for me, a practice, a process of contemplation and action.  It develops and expresses a response, a statement, an emotion, a struggle. Painting communicates. It is a giving of oneself - to oneself and, hopefully, to others - an offering, an honoring.   In these troubled times of war, poverty, social and political injustice, environmental collapse and violence in almost every aspect of life, painting is my cry, my hope rising.  I also paint for the pure pleasure of it and with the hope of creating beauty.

I have studied with the painters Joan Snyder, Wolf Kahn and Sam Feinstein.  Others who have influenced my work include the painters Kathe Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Nancy Spero, as well as, among others, the poets Adrienne Rich, Gabriela Mistral and Audre Lorde,  and theologians and scholars including Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Carter Heyward and Francine Cardman. 

My paintings have been exhibited in New York City, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Cambridge, Cape Cod, and also live in many private collections.

Currently, “Seeds of…” and “In Honor of Kadja” are at The Carter Center in the permanent collection.