Biography Continued..

Tom Hughes was born in 1979 and grew up in the Oxfordshire village of Ewelme, a quiet rural setting of lanes and woodlands that helped shape his visual instincts and long‑term fascination with light, space, and landscape. He later studied at university in Wales before moving to Bristol in 2002, a city that would become both his home and one of his primary subjects.  Before becoming a full‑time painter, Hughes initially worked as an illustrator, later shifting his focus to oil painting as his main medium. Over time he developed a practice centred on painting from life in all weathers, gradually building a reputation for committed plein air work around Bristol, the South West, London and coastal locations. 

Hughes’s paintings have been selected for major open exhibitions including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the BP Portrait Award, the Lynn Painter‑Stainers Prize, and shows with the New English Art Club, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and other national societies. His work has won numerous prizes, among them the Benton Purchase Prize at The Discerning Eye, the Smallwood Architects Prize at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and the Critics Prize at the New English Art Club.

He has held solo exhibitions at Panter & Hall in London’s West End, including the solo shows “Coast to Capital” and “Light, Shade & Water”, and his paintings are represented in collections such as Brunel University and The Discerning Eye. His work is also regularly featured by galleries and art publications, with articles in titles like Plein Air Magazine, Discover Britain, The Artist, and Artists & Illustrators. Alongside his own painting, Hughes teaches from the Newlyn School.

His previous subject matter ranges from city streets, bridges and harbours to quiet woods, rivers, and coastlines and still life in the studio, using everyday objects and “piles of studio clutter” to explore shifts of light and subtle colour relationships.

Tom has been working on a body of work over the last year which has taken his observations of our world to the next level.  On a visit to his studio these new works, were a revelation.  We can’t wait to see this new series on public display once it is complete.