Giles Hohnen

From the Guardian: Doyen of American critics turns his back on the 'nasty, stupid' world of modern art

I thought you might be interested in this link from the Guardian: Doyen of American critics turns his back on the 'nasty, stupid' world of modern art - http://gu.com/p/3bdmt/em

Where The Action Was

http://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=248&fulltext=1#.UIS8IwhXvis.email

Jeremy Kirwan-Ward and Chris Hopewell

Jeremy Kirwan-Ward and Chris Hopewell

 

This exhibition will be among the last to be mounted at Perth Galleries. The gallery closes at the end of this year and a show of this caliber makes it hard to understand why. Jeremy Kirwan-Ward and I completed art school the same year and jointly showed the following year (1971) at Skinner Gallery in Perth. He has painted pretty much continuously since and this shows in the work. Viewing the paintings from a few metres back they almost appear to be colourfield paintings, but as one looks closer, they reveal fine washes over the canvas, translucent layering and controlled bleeding of the variety of paint mark making techniques. All of these qualities, combined with confident colour work provide rich and rewarding possibilities for the viewer, affirming a masterful maker of paintings that, in a way, seem uniquely Western Australian.      

Jeremy Kirwan-Ward, 'Malaspina' acrylic on canvas 130 x 110

Chris Hopewell also went to art school in Perth, but made the break for New York soon after graduating and resided there until quite recently returning with partner Carol Wells to settle back in Fremantle. He is best known in WA for his collage work, but the art in this show is pure painting and it is to some extent shaped by those New York years. The paintings unabashedly and confidently declare an art lineage and more importantly for a mature painter, add to the borderless visual language of abstract painting. 

 

 

Chris Hopewell, 'Rear Window 1' acrylic on panel 60 x 60  

Whatever an artist’s personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists. 

-  Willem de Kooning, from a talk entitled A Desperate View. The talk was given in 1949 during one of the evening sessions organized by Barnett Newman at the "Subjects of the Artists: A New Art School". The school's founders were: William Baziotes, David Hare, Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko.  (credit: Willem de Kooning: Works, Writings, and Interviews, edited by Sally Yard, 2007, Ediciones Poligrafa)