Shara Hughes’ imaginary landscapes plunge viewers into boldly colored, hallucinatory spaces. Here, sweeping trails of paint frame views of a dramatic waterfall, carved rock formations, and a winding river. Hughes uses experimental painting techniques to create ecstatic interpretations of the natural world. She hopes that viewers realize it is a purely fictional space once they try to piece together the different ecologies, land formations, and unnatural color combinations.

This is Hughes’ first large-scale mural. She began with a painting on canvas, which was concurrently on view at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. She explored steeply receding perspectives and curvilinear passages in deliberate contrast to the urban geometries of architecture and roadways that surround this façade. Translated onto this wall by professional muralists, the swirling pleasures of her work radiate at a monumental scale. The mural brings to downtown Boston a visionary combination of art and nature, in partnership with deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

Shara Hughes (b. 1981 in Atlanta) is a Brooklyn-based artist who studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, where she received a BFA in 2004. Her paintings combine elements of landscape, still life, and figuration to dizzying effects. She has had solo exhibitions around the world including Marlborough Chelsea, New York; Gallery Met, Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta; American Contemporary, New York; Rivington Arms, New York; Museum 52, London; Metroquadro, Rivoli; and Galerie Mikael Andersen, Copenhagen. She has participated in group exhibitions at Jack Hanley Gallery, New York; Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco; Coburn Projects, London; Salon 94, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Gredier Contemporary, Zurich; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the Whitney Biennial, among others. Hughes is best known for her playful brushstroke and bold color, balancing abstraction and representation. Hughes is represented by Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York and Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Zurich.