Will Hughes / Diamonds are forever, They are all I need to please me
Diamonds are forever, They are all I need to please me
2025
Silkscreen print hand finished with Diamond Dust
Southbank coarse 310gsm paper
Presented in custom tinted perspex box frame (5mm Neutral 9T13 Perspex)
24 x 28.5 x 6cm (framed)
Edition of 20 (+7 AP)
Title taken from Diamonds Are Forever (1971) by Shirley Bassey
Pricing:
Special exhibition price: £150 unframed / £350 framed
Standard price: £200 unframed / £400 framed
AP price: £250 unframed / £450 framed
Please contact us to request AP copies. Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Voices of Pride' at Vane gallery, Gateshead, UK. Available at the reduced special exhibition price until 22/07/2025.
Artist Statement:
Plastic bags symbolise a trip to the local corner shop, a treat, a fizzy drink or a pint of milk. They are an everyday item around us, a culturally low value object that is often discarded and overlooked, blown around the street, ending up in a tree or bush tattered by the elements.
For this screen print edition with hardcopy I have immortalised the humble placky bag through the use of diamond dust (glass shards) ground down to sparkle and refract light. For many years I have had a fascination with these bags, I’ve interrogated the surface, printed with them, scanned and animated them. Through photography and silkscreen printing, we have fixed the bag in a compressed state of glamour. With a title borrowed from Diamonds Are Forever by Shirley Bassey, I’m thinking about what's in that bag? The fizzy drink that’s going to make my day or that milk which will satisfy my tea craving.
The print becomes a sculptural object through the brown tinted perspex box frame which protects and encloses it. Sunglasses for me have often acted as a shield to the world, a powerful armour of stardom. This aura transforms the print and adds another lens to view the plastic bag through both physically and metaphorically.
About Will
Will Hughes (They/Them) work deals with concepts of aspiration, queerness and glamour. Glamour is a spell which is cast, a blur, it is transformative and seductive. Donatella Versace tells us, 'You can be too boring, but you can never be too seductive.'
They are interested in how the recreation of form through casting, layering and bejewelling affects an object's cultural capital. They use lyrics as titles to reference pop culture and obscure contexts, drawing on social and material histories to weave personal narratives which simmer below a veil of glossy, shiny surface.
Will Hughes was born in Leicester, England in 1993 and is based in Stockton-on-Tees. They graduated from a BA in Fine Art from Bath Spa University in 2018 and was awarded the Kenneth Armitage Foundation, Graduate Award.
Following a year-long studio fellowship at spike island in Bristol, Hughes moved to the North east in 2019 to study an MFA at the BxNU institute (Baltic and Northumbria University). In 2021 Hughes was artist in residence at BB15 in Linz, Austria and in 2024 was artist in residence at Lightpool festival in Blackpool.
Career highlights include selection for the YSI Sculpture Network 2022 and in 2023 was a Nominated Recipient of the Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award. Solo exhibitions include 'La La La, La La La La La, La La La, La La La La La’ at Abingdon Studios Project Space, Blackpool in 2023 and ‘Marea' at GS Artists, Swansea in 2021. They have been selected as Tees Valley Visual Artist of the Year 2025 and will receive a living wage as well as career development support.