Christine Hopwood January 2013

I have drawn and painted for as long as I can remember but have only recently turned professional.  I had a 20+ year career and raised a family, during this time art was just a hobby with sporadic evening classes.  I did develop my own ‘naïve’ abstract forms and motifs within this period and it slowly dawned on me that actually I was quite capable.  I finally decided to pursue art with a view to a career.   I studied at two universities Canterbury Christ Church and Ashford School of Art & Design(University of Kent), with time out to run The Garret Gallery, Tenterden, for one year in between.  I graduated, with a BA in Fine Art, in 2010.  I find I have now become addicted to learning and have since undertaken further Open University studies in art, photography, astronomy and maths.

Art is my passion and I have always been driven to draw, even if only doodles…many of which have now become paintings.  My work draws on many influences but the main ethos is one of holistic connectivity.  I am particularly interested in human evolution both anthropologically and culturally.  I also like to link past to present and science to art.  In my final year at college I researched into evolution of the brain and visual perception.   This and many previous ‘doodle’ experiments prompted the development of the forms in the ‘Flesh Mesh’ project (below left); and, also  ‘Altered Perceptions’ (below right),  a project that examined perception and evolutionary drives.  I will discuss these in more detail in the next blogs, to illustrate my artistic process and how an idea may undergo many incarnations and transitions from initial idea to final piece(s).

     

Current work includes a series of  ‘waveform’ paintings in oil glazes, astronomical paintings and some unusual photographic constructions.  Always an enduring and satisfying form of drawing practice is life study and I will leave you with a couple of my favourites:-

Check out Christine’s website here www.christinehopwood.co.uk

 

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