Hugh Hayden Brings Fire and Faith to Lisson Gallery
Wood-carved works that explore the pleasure and pain of belonging.
Summary
- Sculptor Hugh Hayden’s new solo show, Hughmanity, is now on view at Lisson Gallery in London through November 1
- The show features a new body of wooden works that explore themes of assimilation, identity and belonging through reconfigured cultural symbols
At Lisson in London, sculptor Hugh Hayden unveils Hughmanity, his fourth solo outing at the gallery’s English outpost. Building on his investigation into communion, identity and belonging, the Dallas native presents a new series of wooden works that probe into the tension between assimilation and its often unsavory cost.
Each work begins as a tree — felled, milled, carved and laminated — before being reconstituted into charged cultural relics that embody both the wood’s raw character with a deft sculptural touch. Here, the Hayden introduces painted surfaces, signaling an elemental evolution in his material language.
Across the gallery, familiar symbols are reimagined as emblems of anxiety, defiance and belief. One series swaps the American flag’s 50 stars for 50 cigarettes, pencils and rattle snakes, presenting “a nation under strain,” as per the press statement, and a powerful meditation on the continual erasure, rewriting and reconfiguration of identity on national and personal planes.
Elsewhere, Hayward extends his critique into the sartorial. Blazers bristle with thorns, turning status symbols into instruments of discomfort, while dress shoes sheathed in bark underscore the tension between blending in and “being consumed by the very structures that promise acceptance.”
The exhibition’s centerpiece, “The Last Supper,” features a stretched dining table engulfed by flames, and plays on the strange mix of grief, joy and communion that animate family matters. Nearby, 13 cast-bronze skillets embedded with African masks recall Hayden’s American Food series, linking nourishment and purpose through craft.
“Taken together, these works lend Hughmanity a spiritual undertone that oscillates between Biblical allegory and contemporary critique,” the gallery wrote. Through metamorphosis, Hayden invites viewers to reconsider the fragile architectures of belonging, belief and the human condition itself.
The exhibition is now on view through November 1.
Lisson Gallery London
27 Bell St,
London NW1 5BY,
United Kingdom
