Living Fossils: Etchings and mixed media work by Christopher McHugh

Living Fossils is a collection of etchings and other work by Christopher McHugh.

 Christopher originally trained as an archaeologist, and he brings to his work an insight intoJapan’s social and material landscape, along with an understanding of the creative impact of chance events.

 The etchings explore the concept of preserving lived experiences in material form, as living fossils. The objects of everyday life inJapan – train tickets, fish at market – are transformed into modern day relics.

 “I am interested in the material traces people leave of their passing through time and space.”

 “Something as seemingly mundane as the stain left by a coffee cup on a table, or the stamp made on a train ticket as one passes through the station gates, are as much material records of life as the fossilized footsteps of early humans in African mud, or the remains of a prehistoric settlement.”

 “These traces, or fossils, all have a unique story to tell and a continually developing life of their own. My works tend to begin as collages that blend everyday imagery and ephemera, exploring this no-man’s land where the present becomes the past and the historical record is made.”

 “I hope that my fossils are imbued with a sense of life, as much as with the passing of something.”

 – Christopher McHugh

About the contributors