Bio
Pablo Hughes is a photographic artist based in Boorloo / Perth. Born in Dublin with Spanish heritage, his practice has been shaped by an enduring connection to Spain and an interest in memory, place and cultural identity. He holds a BA in Media Studies and Photo Media from Edith Cowan University and has exhibited widely in Western Australia.
Recent solo exhibitions include Eclipsed Imprints at Kolbusz Space (2025) and Metamorphosis for Fremantle Design Week (2024). Hughes was awarded First Prize in the 2026 City of Rockingham Art Prize and is represented by Kolbusz Space. His work is held in public and private collections including Murdoch University, Edith Cowan University, Central Institute of Technology, City of Bunbury, City of Stirling and City of Melville.
Artist Statement
My photographic practice explores memory, place and cultural identity through overlooked spaces and the traces of human presence. Born in Dublin to a Spanish family and based in Boorloo / Perth, I have maintained a lifelong connection to Spain through family, travel and lived experience. This movement between places has shaped an ongoing interest in how environments hold memory and how photographs can transform the familiar into something less certain.
I am drawn to quiet landscapes, old windows, weathered surfaces, fragmented architecture and discarded materials — not for nostalgia, but for their capacity to abstract. Through texture, reflection, obscured glass, colour and shifting perspective, ordinary environments become ambiguous and sometimes uncanny. Pareidolia — the tendency to perceive recognisable forms where none were intended — is a recurring element in the work, allowing unexpected associations to emerge from otherwise commonplace subjects.
My photographs are generally absent of people, yet human presence remains embedded within them: in what has been built, altered, abandoned or left behind. Rather than constructing straightforward narratives, I use photography to create spaces for association and multiple readings, where meaning develops through atmosphere, ambiguity and visual resonance.
Underlying the work is an interest in impermanence and transformation — the ways places, materials and memories accumulate, erode and change over time. A painterly impulse runs through my use of colour, surface and abstraction, while photography remains grounded in observation. I am interested in the point at which documentation begins to slip into something psychological: where an ordinary surface or overlooked fragment can become a space for memory, imagination and reflection.