Bermuda’s Everyday Beauty: Phoebe Hughes’ Artistic Tribute
Phoebe Hughes' paintings depict a lifeguard, a taxi driver, a fisherman, and locals enjoying beach spots, among other scenes, capturing the essence of Bermuda through its people at work and at leisure.
Phoebe Hughes’ Bermuda Art
Last month we found ourselves at the AllBright Members Club for an event celebrating Bermuda Day hosted by the Bermuda Tourism Authority and The Telegraph. The evening was a delightful blend of Bermudian culture, complete with Rum Swizzles and Dark and Stormys—drinks so tasty they could make you start speaking in pirate.
Bermuda is a stunning island, just 26 miles long, floating like a precious gem in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. With its crystal-clear turquoise waters and pink sand beaches, it's no wonder tourists flock here from around the globe. The island is the kind of place where even your worries might consider taking a vacation.
During the event, we had the pleasure of meeting two local Bermudian artists. Hana Bushara, a singer flown in from Bermuda for the event, charmed us with her voice that could probably convince the ocean waves to dance along. Then there was Phoebe Hughes, a talented artist whose paintings adorned the venue, adding an extra layer of Bermudian beauty to the evening. It was a night of great art, fantastic drinks, and the kind of hospitality that made us wonder if every day could be Bermuda Day.
Phoebe Hughes graduated from Wimbledon College of Arts In 2018 with a degree in Fine Art Painting. However, during university, she quickly fell out of love with painting, and her practice focused mainly on screen printing and sculpture.
After finishing university, Phoebe Hughes wasn’t looking to pursue fine art as her career, opting to go down the path of art therapy instead. She worked in a special needs school right out of university before deciding to move back to Bermuda for a year to save enough money to solo travel around the world. However, she hit a roadblock in 2020 when Covid struck. Having been laid off from her job and with her travel plans on hold indefinitely, a little fire lit in her to start painting again.
This time period was the first time Phoebe Hughes had lived in Bermuda consistently since she went away to boarding school at the age of 15. The culture and people of her country inspired her to start a series of paintings celebrating the ordinary. There is so much beauty and depth to the people and places of Bermuda that she wanted to create paintings showing this to her audience. She began with a painting of a gentleman sitting on a bench, rolling a cigarette in one of the local parks. She then entered this painting into a local bi-annual exhibition called the Charman Prize and left the exhibition with the People’s Choice Award. She continued the series with various paintings of a lifeguard, a taxi driver, a fisherman, locals enjoying beach spots, and various other scenes of people at work or locals enjoying the facets of Bermuda they love so much.
Over time, Phoebe Hughes' work began resonating with Bermudians as the colours and scenes felt so deeply entrenched in what it means to be Bermudian. By immortalising these moments in paint, she began building a following as well as relationships with her subjects. She provided each subject with a signed limited edition print of each painting, and a few of the subjects came to her first exhibition to see these works in person.
In 2022, Phoebe Hughes had her first solo show in Bermuda, showcasing these works. Comprising 9 portraits and 4 foliage paintings, the show ran for 3 weeks and was one of the highlights of her career so far as a full-time artist.
Since then, Phoebe Hughes has been working out of her studio in Brixton. She has been developing her paintings and has re-introduced screen printing back into her practice. She has started to use vintage Bermudian imagery within her paintings and has been trying to add deeper context to the works she is creating. This past March, she entered another painting into the next Charman exhibition in Bermuda and left with the Distinctive and Convincing Style Prize as well as the Masterworks Collection Prize. She has had a mixture of corporate projects and personal commissions since her show and will be travelling home at the end of July to complete her largest corporate project yet—a painting measuring almost 10ft x 5ft.
Click here to find out more about Phoebe Hughes.
