Clyde Hopkins: What is Abstraction?

21 August - 1 October 2022

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    Clyde Hopkins

     

    What is Abstraction?

     

     

     

    Upsilon Gallery is pleased to present "What is Abstraction?," a solo-artist OVR dedicated to British painter Clyde Hopkins. The exhibition gathers 12 paintings produced by the artist between 2002-2008 which give way to a reckless pictorial anatomy, where shapes seem to have more personality than they need.

    • Clyde Hopkins, The P of Asymmetry (Large Version), 2007-08
      Clyde Hopkins, The P of Asymmetry (Large Version), 2007-08
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    • Clyde Hopkins, It was Tony's First Brush with Table Sculpture, 1999
      Clyde Hopkins, It was Tony's First Brush with Table Sculpture, 1999
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  • Hopkins' own concern with abstraction as a radical practice made the question 'what is abstraction' important to ask. There was...
    Clyde Hopkins, Bulverhythe, 2001-02
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    Hopkins' own concern with abstraction as a radical practice made the question 'what is abstraction' important to ask. There was a balance of considerations: on the one hand, the break with the world of appearances freed the visual resources of immediacy and spontaneity; on the other, an imaginative gestural practice in painting could still produce reference, resemblance or depiction.

  • In the mid-to-late phases of Hopkins’ work the question of appearance intensifies. Certainly it creates possibilities of transgression when working through ethical first principles of abstract exclusion. Rules internalized within abstraction hold a negative criticality that was open to challenge; this was important to the groups of abstract painters and sculptors working around Hopkins in Greenwich and Stockwell.

    • Clyde Hopkins, The French Civic Bundle, 2003-04
      Clyde Hopkins, The French Civic Bundle, 2003-04
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    • Clyde Hopkins, Dead Wood Gulch, 2004
      Clyde Hopkins, Dead Wood Gulch, 2004
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  • The effect of Hopkins’ paintings is argumentative countering critical awareness of the impurities of abstract painting, if it is seen...
    Clyde Hopkins, Plankhead, 2005-06
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    The effect of Hopkins’ paintings is argumentative countering critical awareness of the impurities of abstract painting, if it is seen to be representing experience. The issue could be addressed with a syllogistic argument: 'the paintings are abstract; paintings engage experience (if only that of the process of their making); therefore abstract and experiential sources co-exist in painting.' Hopkins is also aware that syllogistic logic is fraught with problems, and this is part of the humor of his work.

  • As a productive strategy the implication of abstract judgement that excludes experience as essentially representational could be accepted but, to...
    Clyde Hopkins, From Gorky's Dustbin #5 (ii): My Dixie Darling, 2007
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    As a productive strategy the implication of abstract judgement that excludes experience as essentially representational could be accepted but, to maintain an argument, it was better if the contrary were true. In that case abstract painting could be held in denial of representation but inclusive of experience, allowing a failure of distinction in syllogistic logic to become a paradoxical source of invention: of representation-in-negation in which representation is held as consciousness and experience is understood to be truly abstract.

  • For example in the painting Plankhead (featured) in which rectilinear brown shapes have 'abstract' structural demarcations of color planes but also include a stylized representational device, a sign of woodgrain patterning. Hopkins uses the problem of including this pattern in the painting: an undoubtedly representational reference is equally an abstraction. Such arguments around codified representation within an abstract frame affect the long-term development of Hopkins' paintings. This painting questions how signs, as readymade abstractions, can have any place within abstraction.

    • Clyde Hopkins, Sennelier Cad Lemon Yellow, 2007
      Clyde Hopkins, Sennelier Cad Lemon Yellow, 2007
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    • Clyde Hopkins, French or Drunk-Maritime, 2002-03
      Clyde Hopkins, French or Drunk-Maritime, 2002-03
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    • Clyde Hopkins, Sycamore, 2003-04
      Clyde Hopkins, Sycamore, 2003-04
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    • Clyde Hopkins, Head Facing Left, 2003
      Clyde Hopkins, Head Facing Left, 2003
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    • Clyde Hopkins, Edible Greenstone Ridge, 2007
      Clyde Hopkins, Edible Greenstone Ridge, 2007
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    To inquire about works by Clyde Hopkins, please email us at info@upsilongallery.com.