Art & Home: Painter first Turner Center artist-in-residence

VALDOSTA – Driving past the Art Park, a new attraction may catch the eye. 

The fence behind the park’s pavilion, owned and operated by the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts, is donning bright colors and strokes of paint that resemble piano keys.

The warm colors and use of orange in the mural is reminiscent of the hot days in almost-always sunny Valdosta.

For the painter, Kristy Hughes, the work represents her love for false dichotomy. The 33-year-old artist said her work is about communication.

“Nothing is one way,” she said. “You can say one thing, and in one context, it means one thing but, in a different context, it means something else. I love false opposites.”

The pavilion’s new backdrop reflects Hughes’ interest in rhythm, color and how structured lines can create movement. She also expresses a fondness in shapes conveying various meanings.

Hughes moved to Valdosta in 2017 after living in a number of places. She got her start in art drawing when she was younger before heading to college.

She began studying biology in school, but while taking art classes that included printmaking, an instructor helped her realize she had a chance at making art a career.

Hughes completed her undergraduate studies at Eastern Illinois University. She has a master’s from Eastern Illinois and a second master’s from Indiana University.

Aside from painting and drawing, she sculpts and crafts collages.

After moving south, Hughes taught art at Valdosta State University.

When she first relocated to Valdosta, she sought ways to get involved in the area.

“It was really important for me to get plugged into the community and I knew that the Turner Center was part of this great community,” she said.

Connecting with the Turner Center led Hughes to participate in the art center’s popular Spring Into Art competition and teach drawing and collage classes at the center.

She has participated in the Turner Center’s DrawProject and had an exhibit displayed in the Sallie & Harmon Boyette Gallery in late 2019.

Her latest partnership with the art center is in its artist-in-residence program debut.

The center established the six-month program at the top of 2020 and accepts proposals from prospects.

Artists in the program use studio space rent-free to create but must produce an original piece of artwork to be given to the art center.

“The artist-in-residence is only responsible for utility costs and other maintenance of the studio for the duration of the commitment,” according to center staff. 

Hughes was selected in mid-February to be the first artist. The mural behind the pavilion is her repayment.

Bill Shenton, center curator, said Hughes’ desire for studio space prompted her acceptance into the program.

Sementha Mathews, center executive director, said witnessing the way Hughes uses the studio space demonstrates the need for the artist-in-residence program. She said she believes it’s assisting Hughes develop as an artist.

“It also helps us really define what the program looks like because she was the first one and having seen what she’s able to do and accomplish, and also do for us, not only makes us feel really good about the program, but it makes us realize the program is really necessary,” Mathews said.

Shenton said Hughes’ mural can take on different views from each angle.

“I think it really adds to the Art Park by drawing people’s curiosity to see what’s there,” he said.

Hughes said her painting has several different meanings and she trusts the viewer to understand what those meanings should be.

“I am not the dictator of what you see from my work,” she said. “It’s like I make it and it means something to me, and then I trust the public. Whatever they interpret that’s totally fine. That’s part of the sharing of art, I think, which is really wonderful.”

In the studio, Hughes is working on pieces for an upcoming show in Ohio, but the mural in the Art Park will remain to be seen by local residents.

It will be completed in time for the Turner Center’s Music in the Park series, which happens the second Friday of each month. It starts June 12. 

Interested applicants in the artist-in-residence program can visit turnercenter.org or call (229) 247-2787.