Patrick Hughes was born in Birmingham, England in 1939. He studied in Hull and at the James Graham Day College in Leeds, and later taught at the Leeds College of Art before becoming an independent artist. He has been represented by Angela Flowers for over forty years, and his career has focused on his interest in and investigation of perspective, optical and visual illusions.

Hughes describes his reverse-perspective, or “reverspective” works as “three-dimensional paintings” that when viewed head-on give the impression of viewing flat surface; however, that is not the case.  Hughes builds his own three dimensional canvases in the shape of two pyramids with the points cut off.  The flat tops protrude from the canvas towards the viewer.  As soon as the viewer moves even slightly to the left and right of the painting, the three dimensional surface “accentuates the depth of the image and accelerates the shifting perspective far more than the brain normally allows,” as Hughes puts it. This provides a powerful impression of depth and movement, as the buildings appear to rotate on an axis. To create this optical illusion, the artist paints the scene in reverse to the relief of the surface.  Meaning, the flat tops of the pyramids that are closest to the viewer, are painted as the horizon line, the most distant part of the scene.