Phil Hopkins’ drawings have a devotional quality. Drawing on the humble, mundane materials and images that dominate our everyday experience, they worry away at them until their physicality and their meaning is transformed. The kitsch poetry of paint-colour names on DIY store colour charts carry the pathos of suburban aspiration, and catalogues of furniture or consumer goods reveal the ways in which we strive to assert our individuality within the limitations of commodified options. These are carefully chosen surfaces on which to draw, and their sheen of advertised sophistication is erased when Hopkins works with these materials. The erasure takes place not decisively, not cleanly, but partially, hesitantly, by means of a roughly scumbled layer of paint reminiscent of the white-smeared surface of windows behind which redecoration work is taking place. The schematic image of the house, and the narrow line of the garden path, ubiquitous in Hopkins' work over many years, remind us simultaneously of a place of refuge and a place of confinement. They signify both the private home of the 'nuclear family' and the social space of the housing estate, embodying both the separateness of the individual and the uniformity of the mass. (Derek Horton, 2014)

Biography

Born in Bristol England, Phill Hopkins studied at Goldsmiths College in London. He lives and works in Leeds. Known as a sculptor, his recent work has centred predominately around drawing. He was recently included in Becky Beasley’s ‘I Fall to Pieces’ (named after his piece) at Leeds City Art Gallery; Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War - Imperial War Museum North, Salford and Parallel Lines & Model Gallery, Leeds. He is represented in various public collections, including, Imperial War Museum, London; Stadt Dortmund, Germany; Hungarian Museum of Photography and Leeds City Art Gallery.