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Patrick Hughes

Patrick Hughes (born 1939) is a British artist working in London. He is the creator of "reverspective", an optical illusion on a 3-dimensional surface where the parts of the picture which seem farthest away are actually physically the nearest.

Patrick Hughes was born in Birmingham, went to school in Hull and went on at the James Graham Day College in Leeds in 1959. Later he taught at the Leeds College of Art before becoming an independent artist. He has three sons by his first wife, Rennie Paterson, and was later married to the author Molly Parkin. Hughes lives above his studio near Old Street, London, with his third wife, the historian and biographer Diane Atkinson.

He has been represented by Angela Flowers for more than forty years. He explains reverspective:

 “Reverspectives are three-dimensional paintings that when viewed from the front initially give the impression of viewing a
painted flat surface that shows a perspective view. However as soon as the viewer moves their head even slightly the
three dimensional surface that supports the perspective view accentuates the depth of the image and accelerates the
shifting perspective far more than the brain normally allows. This provides a powerful and often disorienting impression
of depth and movement. The illusion is made possible by painting the view in reverse to the relief of the surface, that is, the bits that stick farthest out from the painting are painted with the most distant part of the scene.”