Lynn Hughes Lynn Hughes (born 1951) is a Canadian artist, professor, organizer, researcher and curator. In the nineteen-eighties, she was a prominent figure in the “new figuration” movement in Canadian painting.Ted Lindberg, Daina Augaitis (1982). Lynn Hughes, Michael Jolliffe : Meat and Mystery : Life After Vancouver. Vancouver, BC: Emily Carr College of Art and Design, 1982, p. 2.Diana Nemiroff, Rhetoric and Figure in Montréal Painting Now, Parachute 27, été 1982, p. 27. She taught and held administrative positions starting in 1989 in the Fine Arts Department at Concordia University, where she received the 2012 Concordia University Academic Leadership Award.“Notable Concordian–Lynn Hughes: The art of enabling research-creation”, News, University of Concordia website, consulted November 10, 2025. https://www.concordia.ca/content/shared/en/profiles/offices/advancement/notable-concordians/lynn-hughes.html Since 2000, she has been involved as a researcher, creator and advocate of new media and experimental games, holding the Research Chair in Interaction Design and Games Innovation at C.U. (2014-2018). Hughes played an instrumental role in the funding and structuring of the Hexagram Institute for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technologies (Hexagram), and the Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) research centre.“Professor Lynn Hughes”, Faculty Profile, Concordia University website, consulted December 3, 2025. https://www.concordia.ca/faculty/lynn-hughes.html She has co-curated numerous exhibitions, notably “Joue le jeu/Play Along” (2012), a major exhibition of innovative interactive games at La Gaîté lyrique in Paris.“About Joue le Jeu/Play Along”, Joue le jeu / Play Along: Game Exhibition, 2012 website. La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris, France), consulted on November 14, 2025. https://justplayalong.info/home/ Lynn Hughes (1976). “Lynn Hughes: Rank Beginnings–A simple account by the artist” (sidebar), Vanguard, September 1976, p. 10: cover ill. 3 ill. b/w.

Early Years

Lynn Hughes (Snelgrove) was born in 1951 in Vancouver, Canada. During an itinerant childhood she was raised principally in Zambia (c.1953-61), often living on the road on extended “holidays” through Central Africa and Europe. At 10 years old she moved to Madrid, Spain (1961-63) and then spent her teen years in Formby, Lancashire, England (1963-69).Lynn Hughes (1976). Rank Beginnings (interview by Ann Rosenberg and Jim Roberts), The Capliano Review, no. 10, p. 132: 6 ill. b/w.

Studies

Hughes’ initial university studies were in English literature and philosophy, beginning a degree at the University of Liverpool (1969-71) and completing her B.A. at the University of Toronto (1971-72), where she was awarded the Governor General’s Silver Medal for English. Subsequently she moved to Paris, France, to pursue independent studies in painting and at the École des Beaux-Arts, and in ceramics at the École des Arts Appliqués (1972-73). Returning to Canada she completed a B.F.A. at Vancouver School of Art (now named Emily Carr University of Art and Design) (1973-76), graduating with honors in ceramics. She returned to the University of Toronto in 1986, where she received a Masters degree in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, with a concentration in the History and Philosophy of Mathematics (1989).Professor Lynn Hughes (Snelgrove), Canadian Common CV, Fonds de recherche , Société et culture Québec, 8 pages – linked on Concordia University website, “Professor Lynn Hughes” faculty profile page, consulted December 3, 2025. https://www.concordia.ca/faculty/lynn-hughes.html

Artist Career

Early Work

Lynn Hughes first established her reputation in Canada as a ceramicist. For her solo graduate show “Rank Beginning” at the Vancouver Art Gallery (1976), she presented a raku pottery installation.op cit., Hughes, Capliano Review.op cit., Hughes, Vanguard. By 1979, she had moved away from ceramics, exhibiting the text based installation Life After Art Theory at the “20 x 20 Italia/Canada” exhibition in Milan, Italy, alongside Canadian artists such as Bill Vazan, Sorel Cohen and Suzy Lake.n.a. (1979). 20 x 20 Italia/Canada, Galleria Blu, Studio Luca Palazzoli, Dove la Tigre, Milano, 16 pages.

Painting In the early 1980s, Hughes developed a neo-expressionist painting practice in Montréal.Pascale Beaudet, La peinture au Québec : Une nouvelle génération, Vie des arts, Volume 30, numéro 120, septembre–automne 1985, p. 21. URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/54102ac She became a representative of Canada’s “new expressionism” group of painters,Burnett, D. and Schiff, M (1983) .: Contemporary Canadian Art, pub. Hurtig Publishers Ltd. in cooperation with the Art Gallery of Ontario, p. 258-259: 1 ill b&w. https://archive.org/details/contemporarycana00burn also known as the “new figuration” movement, which included fellow Montréal artists David Elliot, Michael Joliffe, Luc Béland and Suzelle Levasseur.Bentley Mays, J (1983).: "The Snakes in the Garden", Visions, ed. Douglas and McIntyre, Vancouver/Toronto 1983. Color Illustration.Michèle Thériault (1996). “Tentative Equations” in Present Tense Contemporary Project Series: Lynn Hughes, Art Gallery of Ontario, 14 p. Pamphlet. Her early solo shows in Canadian artist-run centres include: “Lynn Hughes: Pictures of Things” at Mercer Union in Toronto (1980) “Lynn Hughes: Pictures of Things”, 14 October-1 November, 1980, Mercer Union website, https://www.mercerunion.org/exhibitions/hughes-pictures-of-things (consulted January 12, 2026) and “Lynn Hughes: It's Only Fascination" at Optica in Montréal (1980).“Lynn Hughes, From September 8th 1980 to September 27th 1980, It's Only Fascination”, Optica Website Archives, https://www.optica.ca/decades/expo_affiche_annee_en.php?anne_expo=1980 (consulted January 12, 2026) She was included in the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal’s 1985 group exhibition “Peinture au Québec: une nouvelle génération”, with artists such as Michel Daigneault and Pierre Dorion. In the nineteen eighties Hughes was represented by Grünwald Gallery in Toronto, where she exhibited in 1982 and 1985, and later in 1990 (exhibition “Pure + Applied’).Gilles Godmer, Peinture au Québec : une nouvelle génération, Musée d’art contemporain, 1985, p. 26. https://macrepertoire.macm.org/media/publications/catalogues/D/CA1985.2_DNf.pdf

By 1982, Hughes produced The Suspects, a widely exhibited and commented upon series of portraits of important figures from literature and philosophy such as William James (coll. National Gallery of Canada)“Lynn Hughes: Annunciation for William James, 1982”, Collection, National Gallery of Canada Website, consulted January 28, 2026. https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/annunciation-for-william-james, Henry Miller, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Jean Genet.Michèle Thériault (1996). “Tentative Equations” in Present Tense Contemporary Project Series: Lynn Hughes, Art Gallery of Ontario, 14 p. Pamphlet.Bruce Grenville (1985). The Allegorical Image in Recent Canadian Painting, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario, 36 pages.Merike Talve (1983). “The Meat and the Mystery: Lunn Hughes and Michael Jolliffe”, Vanguard, February 1983, p. 10-12.Felda Grünwald and Diana Nemiroff (curators) (1982). New Directions: Toronto/Montreal (exhibition catalogue), Art Toronto ‘82: 3rd Toronto International Art Fair, published under the auspices of Art Magazine Inc., p. 28-29.Ted Lindberg and Daina Augaitis. Lynn Hughes, Michael Jolliffe : Meat and Mystery : Life After Vancouver (exhibition catalogue). Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC, 1982, 20 pages. Diana Nemiroff, critic and future curator at the National Gallery of Canada, wrote that these works push “against the limit of what we are willing to accept as art… [and] define the character of the new figuration as a painting of desires made manifest.”Nemiroff qualifies Lynn Hughes’ paintings as “critical figurative painting…it is a painting of longing, composed of references to memory, dreams, stories, icons and kitsch. Its modes are most commonly the ugly, the comic, the theatrical, and the innocent, or some combination thereof.” (p. 26) Her works are said to “Push against the limit of what we are willing to accept as art…[and] define the character of the new figuration as a painting of desires made manifest.” (p. 27) Diana Nemiroff, Rhetoric and Figure in Montréal Painting Now, Parachute, 27, été 1982, p. 22-27. Hughes continued painting large expressionist canvases into the mid to late eighties. In her 1986 exhibition “Suzuki Soup”, scientific instruments and mathematical formulas enter into her dense collage of eclectic imagery.Pam Bjornson (1986). “Lyn Hughes: Neutral Ground, Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina”, Vanguard, October/November 1986, p. 33-44.Paul Smith (1988). “L’art au travail (Exposition no 7): Sept peintres exposent dans les fabriques de Liberté”, Liberté, Candiac, Québec, 12 pages. That same year, motivated by her desire to see her art embedded in a larger social context, Hughes shifted her focus away from the studio and began a Master’s degree at University of Toronto in the history and philosophy of science and technology.Lynn Hughes and Marie-Josée Lafortune, “Creative Con/fusions…“ in Lynne Bell, Joan Borsa, et al (2001) Penser l'indiscipline : Recherches interdisciplinaires en art contemporain = Creative Con/Fusions : Interdisciplinary Practices in Contemporary Art, Optica, Montréal, Qc, p. 16. https://e-artexte.ca/id/eprint/14727/

Upon completion of her studies in the history of science, Hughes returned to painting combining these two interests in a series of works entitled The Project on Women + Mathematics (1993), also known as Tentative Equations.“I wanted the academic side of me to make some sort of queasy peace with the painter I still valued and needed my traditional, contemplative practice, but I also needed to connect it to the world again – and, if possible, to a specific, even local, world.” Lynn Hughes quoted in Michèle Thériault (1996). Present Tense Contemporary Project Series: Lynn Hughes (exhibition catalogue), Art Gallery of Ontario, pamphlet, p.3. The works were portraits of women mathematicians, each an assemblage with three parts: a full body, near life-size, black-and-white photograph of a Montreal mathematician; her favourite mathematical formula painted directly on the gallery wall; and Hughes’ interpretation of the formula in an abstract painting. The series first showed in Canadian artist-run centres (New Gallery, Calgary, 1993; Oboro, Montreal, 1995) and later at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (1996). Critics were to note the interplay between literal photographic studies and abstraction, and between the intellectualisation of painting and the aestheticisation of mathematical workings,Annie Martin (1997). “Lynn Hughes, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, April 10-July 14”, Parachute, no. 85, p. 59-60. as well as Hughes’ disruption of traditional binaries, such as reason/intuition, male/female as well as science/art.Carol Laing (1995). “Trapeze Acts or Flies in Amber: Lynn Hughes Tentative Equations, Galerie Oboro, Montréal, February 18th - March 19th, 1995”, Oboro, 4 page pamphlet.