Kayt Hughes


I’m a North West-based artist, arts producer, curator and educator. My work focuses on the sensory – informed by my synaesthesia – creating a unique understanding of sound, shape, texture, colour, and mass. 

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Artist Statement

My practice navigates the politics of understanding: how communication happens outside of language and the importance of finding alternative routes to create, and share, knowledge. This can take the form of more traditionally recognisable art objects, such as sculpture, drawings, and exhibitions; or exist more fluidly as workshops, performances, and frameworks for experimentation and support. 

Much of my work strives to demystify the processes of art-making, and the difficulty of navigating both art spaces and the sector as a whole. In the gallery, this might include collaboration and participation. This is either through working with other artists or inviting audiences in as both performer and viewer, subverting the expectation of traditional formal art spaces. In my production practice, I create similar frameworks for artistic engagement and development, aiming to remove some of the barriers to making art, or working within the sector.

Currently, I am focusing on the processes of transmutation which, for me, exist between sound and sculpture. After a period focused more on production and artist support, I am investing in my studio practice through the support of an Arts Council England’s Develop Your Creative Practice Grant (DYCP). I am working with ceramics and sound production, to capture my synaesthetic experiences as physical gestures and fixed forms. I am also researching the connections between non-verbal communications and object-making: particularly around neurodivergent sensory techniques like stimming.  

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Awards and Grants
2024: Develop Your Creative Practice, Arts Council England
2019: a-n Artist Bursary
2018: Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries 
2015: Woon Prize for Painting and Sculpture, BALTIC x NU

Residencies
2023 - 2024: AA2A Blackpool School of Art
2021 - 2022: AA2A Staffordshire University
2016: In Cahoots, Hoult's Yard, Newcastle

Solo Exhibitions
2024: Thinking About Sonic Object, Paradise Works, Salford
2018: Balance, Stack, Play, Grizedale Forest, Lake District
2016/7: My Five Year Old Could Have Done That, Gallery North, Newcastle
2016: It May Not Be Perfect But It’s Mine, NewBridge Project Space, Newcastle
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023: Para-lab Report, Manchester 
2020: Forced Collaboration, Online Project 
2019: Depot Art Studios at Old Bank NOMA, Manchester 
2017: Sexy Boy Unites Salford, After School Club, Paradise Works, Salford 
2017: A Show About The Show, (Scaffold Gallery) at Bankley Gallery, Manchester 
2017: Shared Space, Woon Tai Jee Studio, Newcastle 
2016: In Cahoots, Hoult’s Yard Print Studios, Newcastle 
2015: Woon Art Prize Shortlist Exhibition, BALTIC 39, Newcastle 
2015: From Tokens to Totems, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam 
2015: Plat Form Plai Ground, North Laines, Brighton 
2014: Soup Kitchen, Bohunk Institute, Nottingham 
2014: PINK, My Sight Gallery, Nottingham 
2014: Emerge, Surface Gallery, Nottingham 

Other projects include: Para-lab member, Artful Publication, Apprentice / Master Kunstpodium T

Production and Curatorial Practice
2023 - present: Artist Development Producer at HOME 
2023 - present: Artist-Producer for Manchester Artist-Teachers Collective (with Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth and HOME)
2023: Producer at Factory International: Endless Summer
2021 - 2023: Public Programme Producer at FACT Liverpool, projects including: Jack Tan: Performing Boardness; Framework for Trust; Yellow Furry Lullaby and Arabic Opera Performance
2022: City Coordinator for Manchester, British Art Show 9 including: City Commission by Katie Schwab and Art Agents
2020 - 2022: Associate Alumni with Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries 
2019 - 2020: Exhibitions Producer at The Lowry
2018 - 2019: Education Coordinator at Liverpool Biennial / Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries Fellow

Talks and Presentations
2021: Keynote Speaker, People Place Power Conference - ‘Creative People and Places’
2021: The Role of the Producer in Socially Engaged Art, Making of Us, The Turnpike, Leigh 
2019: ‘Socio-economic Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts: A Toolkit for Employers’ launch event with Jerwood Arts and MIF, in conversation with Julie Lomax, Director of a-n 
2016: Fine Art Guest Artist Lecture, Northumbria University
2016: Inter-Educate, Nottingham 
2015: De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam 
2014: Fontys Hogeschool vor de Kunsten, Tilburg 
2014: Process Symposium, Summer Lodge, Nottingham

Other organisations I have worked with as a freelancer include: Starling CIO, CVAN National, Touchstones Rochdale and TripleC