Total War
Lily Hughes presents ‘Total War’ – the culmination of two years’ experimentation and visual research. The project is an exploration of war imagery through collage, drawing and linocut. The source photographs, taken from news media throughout the twentieth century draw attention to the ubiquity of graphic imagery in the news and the artist’s personal response to them. War presents itself as a research interest because it is banal and endless, it goes on and on needlessly victimising ordinary people all over the world. Having never lived through a conflict, the artist is reliant on the media to gather the primary materials. By engaging with the images directly, through cutting, gluing, drawing, carving and printing, there is an opportunity to confront this distance, leaning into the discomfort. Through removing these painful images from their contexts of specific times, places, politics and conflicts, the hope is that the concept of war and of ‘Total War’ can be seen for what it is: an industry in which profit is prioritised over the lives of civilians and the wellbeing of global society. Visitors to the exhibition can expect a clash of images: a meditation on war and disquieting view into the artist’s obsessive tendencies.
- 10-13 July 2025
- Hold Creative Spaces, Albert Street, Ramsgate, Kent CT11 9HD
Lily Hughes is a Margate-based artist working across the disciplines of writing, printmaking and ceramics to explore daily life including the poorly, the political, the boring and the strange. Taking a research forward approach, Lily aims to make accessible and inexpensive art that pokes fun at the structures that enable and disable us. Lily graduated from Goldsmiths with a degree in History of Art in 2015, before going on to receive an MRes in Art Theory and Philosophy from Central Saint Martins in 2017. Writing about art and philosophy continues to be a major part of Lily’s output, alongside poetry and autobiography, all of which contribute to a blog which she regularly updates.
Thanet Experimental 