Louise Hopkins

Louise Hopkins (born 1965) is a British contemporary artist and painter currently living and working in Glasgow, Scotland.

She was born in Hertfordshire, England, graduating from Glasgow School of Art MFA Programme in 1994 and from Newcastle Polytechnic in 1988. For a time, after graduating from Newcastle Polytechnic, she lived and worked in Australia, where she also exhibited. Hopkins first gained recognition in Glasgow and London in 1996. ^[1]

In 2002, she received a Creative Scotland Award. She held her first retrospective exhibition at The Fruitmarket Gallery in 2005 and in 2007, she was one of six artists chosen to represent Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale.^[2]

Work

Louise Hopkins is known for rarely making work on blank surfaces, choosing instead to start with a material that is pre-existing, and usually pre-printed, either with specific imagery or more generic graphic information. From this she develops painted or drawn marks as a way of engaging and transforming the surface.

Found surfaces that Hopkins works onto include furnishing fabric, maps, sheet music, graph paper,pages from history books and, lately, from commercial catalogues.

"The artist has spoken of her interest in working on supports which contain information, often an image, and in turning that image into a painting by repainting and hence remaking it."^[3]

"Louise Hopkins’s world is in an endless state of flux, becoming and adjustment. Meaning for her is never something to be merely established-through research, for example, or contemplation-but rather galvanised, sparked into a state of pulsing iteration and reiteration…In an indicative work, Untitled (011), 1998, she once crumpled a piece of white paper, the kind generally used to write or type or scribble or photocopy on. She acted not in anger or frustration but to make the paper more interesting, yet not less itself. To the same end, she then used a fine pencil to draw thin parallel marks delineating the faint shadows cast by the creases. The paper’s once latent complexity was unleashed. Its pristine (artless) past remained a presence beneath the surface. Through a set of effects, both accidental and intended the blank sheet had become defined, articulated through hard-edged incident; it also continued to carry the dynamic tension of its violent collapse." ^[4]

Solo exhibitions

Solo exhibitions include:

• Harness at Mummery + Schnelle, London, in October/November, 2008;
• Freedom of Information at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, in 2005;
• The Round Room, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, in 2004;
• doggerfisher, Edinburgh, in 2003;
• Andrew Mummery Gallery, London, in 2003;
• Angles Gallery, California, in 2001;
• Andrew Mummery Gallery, London, in 1999;
• Artconnexion, Lille, in 1997;
• Galerie Isabella Kackprzak, Berlin, in 1997;
• Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan, in 1998;
• Tramway Project Room, Glasgow, in 1996;
• Aberdeen Art Gallery, in 1994;
• Photospace, Canberra School of Art, in 1993;
• Ben Grady Gallery, Canberra, in 1992.

Group exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions:

• Scotland and Venice, 52nd Venice Biennale, in 2007;
• Doubleuse, The Nunnery Gallery, London, in 2007;
• Mythomania, The Metropole Galleries, Folkestone, Kent, in 2005;
• New: recent acquisitions of contemporary art, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, in 2003;
• Words, Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery, in 2003;
• Sunday Afternoon, Arts Council Collection National Touring Exhibition, 303 Gallery, New York, in 2003;
• Anywhere, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, New York, in 2003;
• The Embarkation for Cythera, Andrew Mummery Gallery, London, in 2003;
• Life is Beautiful, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, in 2003;
• From the Saatchi Gift, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, in 2003;
• Works from the Saatchi Gift, Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, in 2003;
• Here + Now, Scottish Art 1990-2001, Dundee Contemporary Arts and venues in Dundee and Aberdeen, in 2001;
• Open Country, Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, Lausanne, Tenable,, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, in 2001;
• Moving On Up (Part 2), Andrew Mummery Gallery, London, in 2000;
• A Day Like Any Other, Kulturhaus, Stavanger, in 2000;
• Secret Garden, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, in 2000;
• Pictura Britannica at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 1997.

Public collections

• Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen;
• Arts Council of England, London;
• Artbank, Sydney, Australia
• British Council, London;
• City Arts Centre, Edinburgh;
• Jumex Collection, Mexico;
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney;
• Museum of Modern Art, New York;
• Musee Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne;
• Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Rhode Island;
• Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.

References

1. ↑ http://brooklynrail.org/2010/07/artseen/merlin-james-frame-paintings-louise-hopkins
2. ↑ britishcouncil.org
3. ↑ From "mark making" by Fiona Bradley, in Louise Hopkins: Freedom of Information, paintings and drawings, 1996-2005, published by The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 2005
4. ↑ From "adjustment" by Greg Hilty, a text originally published as part of Louise Hopkins: Freedom of Information, paintings and drawings, 1996-2005, published by The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 2005

External links

• doggerfisher representative gallery
• Mummery + Schnelle representative gallery
• The Fruitmarket Gallery
• scotlandandvenicebiennale