Recent Abstract Photographs of the Berlin Wall
Photographs by Grace Hopkins
Meet the Artist:  Thursday, October 5, 4-6 pm
Artist Statement: 
I find beauty in the ugly.  Seeking small details in the world that are painted surfaces or color that most people walk right past and then blowing them up for everyone to thee the wonder I find.  I travel down alleys and into the dark corners of world people avoid to find the exquisiteness in the horrid.
They are photographs, but people think they are paintings.  Technically, they are straight photographs taken of actual things that exist in the world; they are not manipulated, but they look like and feel like abstract paintings.  Emotionally, they are all about painting.
Color is crucial to me.  I believe in the power of color and how it affects mood.  I want people to walk into a room of my photographs and feel surrounded by the color and the warmth that emanates from them.  In addition, I want people to have the bold composition of color, shadow, lights and blacks challenge them to find their footing within the picture.
“A photographer with the eye and soul of a painter, Hopkins crates an image by isolating a fragment of something larger, perhaps a wall, textured and brightly lit, or flickering in shadow.  Hopkins’ images ask that we take nothing for granted.  We are jolted into seeing the smallest detail, something we would rush past, as something unexpected, marvelous, and, by Hopkins’ positioning the camera just close enough to enlarge the image without distortion, something quite grand.
Hers is a vision rooted in a pure form of abstract expressionism.  The images she shoots suggest the sharply angled details of a Franz Kline, geometric shapes and flat colors of her father, or a sudden burst of translucent layers, which could have been—but definitely are not—details from a Robert Motherwell. Suddenly a viewer feels surrounded by the freshness of expressionist imagery and motion, each piece different, each piece allusive yet quite original.”  –Susan Rand Brown, Provincetown Banner, July 2014.