Eric Hopkins, the man and his work, seems somewhat ubiquitous in midcoast Maine. He is often seen in downtown Rockland, his home base since 2006, and his work is not only on view at the eponymous gallery on Winter Street, but was also displayed at Café Miranda for a while. Plus his images appear in many places, including on bags of organic mulch. But some of that is changing. Since moving his studio out of the gallery space, Hopkins has been enjoying his new privacy without interruptions by admiring and curious visitors. He is now also dividing his time between Rockland and Mount Desert Island, a much more natural and wild environment. And "wild" is where Hopkins wants to go.
Continuing my series of studio visits on Rockland's Main Street, I caught up with Hopkins in his large studio and living space above Bench Dogs - before he got too wild for me. He very generously took me around the entire space (I even got to admire the enticingly enormous showerhead). One room is set aside solely for painting and includes drawer after drawer of paint brushes, neatly laid out side by side, by Hopkins' estimate thousands of them. There is also a closet with old painting materials, including empty paint tubes, loose caps, retired brushes, and mounds of dried-out paint - material for a future installation according to the artist. Another room contains a large sink and is primarily used for working with acrylics and glass powder, but it also houses an entire shelf unit of his writings going back to 1971, mostly observations about nature. Old sketchbooks are kept in a hallway closet that also contains his skateboard from 7th grade and his notes about cell biology dating back to his classes at Brown University in the mid-1970s. The walls of yet another room are adorned with paintings in progress and those that may need some touching up.
If this sounds as if Hopkins is using much of his apartment to make art, wait until you hear about the combined living room and kitchen area. One corner contains neatly labeled flat files for his large works on paper and is also set up for making drawings and watercolors. However, the majority of the space is given over to painting, sofa and occasional chairs pushed aside. And here's why. The entire width of the space is made of glass and faces Rockland harbor with a distant view of the Breakwater Lighthouse. Light. Air. Water. Sun. The ingredients of Hopkins' painted universe.
Hopkins' energy and attention has always been directed toward understanding nature and capturing what he perceives as its essential forces in whatever form he can, be that writing, drawing, painting,Wholesaler of different types of Ceramic tile for your kitchen, sculpting, photographing or shaping glass. His fantastically fluid and quick sketches abstract what he observes in nature and reveal his admiration for what is "real and direct," including children's art and ancient cave paintings. Working from drawings like these or video footage and photographs he takes while walking, driving, floating, or flying about, Hopkins aims to condense his imagery to nature's essentials, for which he has developed an idiom of shorthand forms. As he sees it, the energy of the life force can be found in the rhythms and patterns of nature and music alike (he always has some playing while working). Currently, Hopkins is following that thread of thought in his "cutouts" - shaped wooden reliefs - in which the wood grain oftentimes supplies an essential element of the composition. In these vistas of Penobscot Bay dotted with clouds and islands, what appears to the eye as completely flat assumes in Hopkins' creations three-dimensional reality - a sense of space that comes from intimately knowing the area and its phenomena. If the majority of Hopkins' apartment is used as studio space, it's because he lives for his art.
Continuing my series of studio visits on Rockland's Main Street, I caught up with Hopkins in his large studio and living space above Bench Dogs - before he got too wild for me. He very generously took me around the entire space (I even got to admire the enticingly enormous showerhead). One room is set aside solely for painting and includes drawer after drawer of paint brushes, neatly laid out side by side, by Hopkins' estimate thousands of them. There is also a closet with old painting materials, including empty paint tubes, loose caps, retired brushes, and mounds of dried-out paint - material for a future installation according to the artist. Another room contains a large sink and is primarily used for working with acrylics and glass powder, but it also houses an entire shelf unit of his writings going back to 1971, mostly observations about nature. Old sketchbooks are kept in a hallway closet that also contains his skateboard from 7th grade and his notes about cell biology dating back to his classes at Brown University in the mid-1970s. The walls of yet another room are adorned with paintings in progress and those that may need some touching up.
If this sounds as if Hopkins is using much of his apartment to make art, wait until you hear about the combined living room and kitchen area. One corner contains neatly labeled flat files for his large works on paper and is also set up for making drawings and watercolors. However, the majority of the space is given over to painting, sofa and occasional chairs pushed aside. And here's why. The entire width of the space is made of glass and faces Rockland harbor with a distant view of the Breakwater Lighthouse. Light. Air. Water. Sun. The ingredients of Hopkins' painted universe.
Hopkins' energy and attention has always been directed toward understanding nature and capturing what he perceives as its essential forces in whatever form he can, be that writing, drawing, painting,Wholesaler of different types of Ceramic tile for your kitchen, sculpting, photographing or shaping glass. His fantastically fluid and quick sketches abstract what he observes in nature and reveal his admiration for what is "real and direct," including children's art and ancient cave paintings. Working from drawings like these or video footage and photographs he takes while walking, driving, floating, or flying about, Hopkins aims to condense his imagery to nature's essentials, for which he has developed an idiom of shorthand forms. As he sees it, the energy of the life force can be found in the rhythms and patterns of nature and music alike (he always has some playing while working). Currently, Hopkins is following that thread of thought in his "cutouts" - shaped wooden reliefs - in which the wood grain oftentimes supplies an essential element of the composition. In these vistas of Penobscot Bay dotted with clouds and islands, what appears to the eye as completely flat assumes in Hopkins' creations three-dimensional reality - a sense of space that comes from intimately knowing the area and its phenomena. If the majority of Hopkins' apartment is used as studio space, it's because he lives for his art.
没有评论:
发表评论