Greg Hopkins
Paintings
2010-2016
July 2nd – October 5th, 2018 (EXTENDED)
Artist Talk / Closing Reception October 5th 6-8pm
Opening July 25th, 2018 5:30-8pm
Curated by Kirstin Lamb
The Yard, Williamsburg
33 Nassau Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11222
Kirstin Lamb Curatorial and The Yard, Williamsburg are pleased to present a new survey of Greg Hopkins’ recent paintings, looking closely at Greg’s work in multiples, mid-sized and smaller works.
Greg Hopkins makes stunning abstract paintings. Something to note about Greg and his work is his tendency to make intricate and clean spaces of painting somehow warm and inviting. There is no cold geometry to one of his paintings, though the complexity of each painstakingly hand-drawn or hand-cut component initially suggests a cooler, less vibrant and less strange abstraction.
Greg doesn’t use rulers. He carefully hand-cuts layers of masking tape for each artwork, creating such complex systems and blue tape tangles, that it is hard for a fellow painter to follow. Which line comes first? How is the chevron woven into the larger loom of the picture? Where does that neon color recur, but with an elegant veil of subtle glaze over top? The hand that makes these pictures prefers soft and imperfect lines with the finest of paint application.
For his more gestural abstract marks, Greg draws and drips first with ink, to create an improvisational line, which is then laboriously hand-cut and masked. Greg is both carving into ornate and dandyish wallpaper and also laying something like a gestural applique on top of the weave.
Greg’s work functions as a pattern excavation, laden with a sweet and sometimes sad personal intensity, Greg is peeling off layers of wallpaper, burrowing down into his glowing 8 bit maze, a warm and welcome counterpoint to hard-edged and sometimes dry geometric formalism.
