Sara Hughes in Artlink

Jess h:I found this piece, The Big Stick Up,2006 in Artlink. Its by Sara Hughes and is basically made up of leftover materials. Usually Hughes work revolves around the idea of childrens obsession with stickers done by using handpainted and commercially coloured vinyl that she then manipulates in many ways to create stickers to stick in the art spaces she exhibits in. This is where the term The Big Stick Up comes from-Hughes descrinbing her own obsession.

In this piece the materials she uses include 9000 small clear plastic containers that have been stained with leftover acrylic paint in different bright colours. These have been stacked to give the impression of mountains, creating a mini landscape. She also used leftover pieces of vinyl to portray a horizontal landcape like effect in the horizon. Personally i think that these pieces in the background look like clouds or something like that in the sky.

I like this piece as a purely formal piece, however Huges intentions was for it to be more socio-political. The piece was intially meant to be formal with the title refering to stickers however while living in the US she became influenced by cowboys in movies and solidiers in the news as she was constantly confronted with them. The idea of The Big Stick Up then began to revolve around this idea and she painted heaps of plastic soldiers in the same paint to comoflages them in the fake mountains. One reason i do like this idea of the soldiers though is because in itially it is seen as childlike and innocent. The toy soldiers work with this idea of childhood. but i think that the large fake mountains with toy soldiers hiding within it create a creepy kind of environment. Artlink vol 26 no3 pg57