Painter, art therapist, photographer and installations artist, born in Glasgow. Hughes studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, 1976–80. For much of the 1980s he worked with the mentally sick, in the art therapy department at Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, then at Royal Edinburgh Psychiatric Hospital. He had his first one-man show at 369 Gallery, Edinburgh, in 1985. In 1988–9 he worked as artist-in-residence at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; had a solo show there in 1989 and in that year showed widely on the continent. Several large museums, as well as the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, hold his work which was deeply influenced by his time with the mentally deranged and which can be sad and disturbing but powerful.