Born and raised in South Mississippi, Hewes’s sensibility was shaped by the landscapes and contradictions of the American South. After studying at Northwestern University in the Chicago area — where he met his wife and ongoing collaborator, Deniz Turkoglu Hewes — he relocated to Istanbul, her family’s home city. The couple lived between Turkey and the United States for two years, an experience that expanded his visual vocabulary and deepened his engagement with theatrical space, architecture, and the psychology of place.

Now based in New Orleans, Hewes shares a studio with his wife. They frequently collaborate, while maintaining distinct practices. He continues to move fluidly between studio and road, constructing images wherever temporary sets can be made.

Hewes constructs images that operate like theatrical fictions or waking hallucinations, assembling fragments of observed reality into psychologically unstable spaces. His practice draws from symbolist painting, surrealist cinema, commercial photography, and stagecraft, using digital tools for both seamless illusion and deliberate estrangement.

Recurring motifs of mirrors, body doubles, distorted interiors, and rehearsed gestures suggest a world increasingly shaped by performance, control, and self-surveillance. The resulting images oscillate between seduction and unease, treating contemporary identity as something staged, fragmented, and perpetually under construction.