GEORGIE HOPTON
GEORGIE HOPTON Within a Budding Grove 27th February – 5th April 2019
Lyndsey Ingram 20 Bourdon Street London W1K 3PL T. +44 (0)20 7629 8849 E . info@lyndseyingram.com W. lyndseyingram.com
FOREWORD Lyndsey Ingram
In life and in art, everything comes in its own time. When I first saw Georgie’s work many years ago, I was immediately impressed. The tension between refined and raw was so compelling, I found myself deeply curious to know more. However, it was not until nearly ten years later that we eventually met and decided to embark on this exhibition. Having imagined her work in my mind for so long, I am delighted to now have the opportunity to present it in my gallery. Georgie’s work spans several mediums and we believe it is essential to include her textiles, wallpapers and rugs alongside the works on paper. To understand Georgie’s work is to experience it beyond the confines of the picture frame. It is holistic and all-encompassing, immersing viewers in the elegant and often playful parallel universe that she creates. Materials like flowers, fabric, and food, often relegated to the purely decorative or domestic, are elevated here to fine art. Her singular working practice includes several different approaches. The vegetable prints are the culmination of a year’s worth of cultivation that begins in her garden months before she sets foot in the studio. Using only vegetables from her harvest, she approaches a pea pod or a sliced squash like most artists would an etching plate - creating monoprints with these unlikely implements. Other works on paper, including the monumental collages, epitomise her magpie instinct. She carefully collects papers and yarns and keeps them in her studio until they eventually find new life in her
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collages. Consistent throughout is Georgie’s relentless and creative repurposing of unlikely everyday objects in original and surprising ways. Beyond the elegant presentation, this work also possesses a deep tension, which sits at the core of everything she does. The artist has described her fascination with desire and disgust, and her work lays bare this interest in the duality between vulgar and beautiful, natural and man-made, large and small, always treading a fine line between the two. As she has commented, Georgie is always ‘searching for the grandiose in the small’. I continue to be impressed by Georgie’s ability to create an entire world, cloaked in her own, very particular, aesthetic and this exhibition extends far beyond the works on paper. Every surface of the gallery will be covered with the rich patterns and surprising textures of her organic, earthy sensibility. The show is, as the title suggests - ‘Within a Budding Grove’. I am delighted and honoured that Georgie is transforming our space with her creative vision. To know her work, is to become a part of it.
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INTRODUCTION Louisa Buck
Like many artists before her - Cedric
she then returns for a longer summer
Morris, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe
spell for harvesting, reaping and a period
and Edward Steichen, to name but a few
of replenishment, both physically and
– Georgie Hopton is a keen cultivator of
creatively. However, while her movements
plants, as well as using them as subject
are dictated by the growing seasons of her
matter. She has painted, sculpted and
American garden – Hopton admits that
photographed flowers and made pho-
‘nature is incredibly important to me,’ her
tographic works using her own body in
concerns remain predominantly artistic,
conjunction with vegetables grown in her
rather than horticultural. Her primary
garden. These images – and those she has
creative domain remains the studio.
borrowed from the horticultural pursuits of others – continue to form the composi-
The evocative title of this exhibition,
tional core of her most recent collages of
‘Within a Budding Grove,’ comes from
flowers. They also underpin her ongoing
Marcel Proust’s ‘Remembrance of Things
‘seasonal’ works, which incorporate
Past’ (‘A Recherche du Temps Perdu’) and
flower stems and leaves from the garden
this fecund grove of potentiality resides
and vegetable prints made with her
in each of the richly stimulating worlds
homegrown produce.
that she has forged for herself, both inside and out.
Hopton describes her year as a ‘vegetable migration’ which sends her across
The 2006-9 ‘Harvest’ photographs, in
the Atlantic from her house in central
which Hopton fused her bodily presence
London to her farm in Upstate New York
with fruits of her ‘vegetable migration’
for two weeks in mid-May to plant seeds;
was a consequence of an acknowledged
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need ‘that all that cultivation outdoors
plants hold an enormous variety of
had to cultivate creativity indoors – there
forms and colours in their gene pool and
had to be payback in the studio.’ In a
because of this rare characteristic they
conversation with her former St Martin’s
have been able to be heavily cultivated.
tutor, John Stezaker, she discussed this
‘Sculptural and other-worldly, with an
revelatory fusion of art and life, com-
exquisite symmetry and alien colour-
menting, ‘It has become clear to me that
ways, these specialised cultivars have a
the God Game – ie: Creation – happens
theatrical and intense presence that I find
in the studio in almost the same way
endlessly beguiling,’ she says. Because
as it does in the garden.’ Conversely,
of the shape of their leaves, the popular
when she makes her collages back in the
name for auricula is ‘bear’s ears’ and this,
urban setting of her London studio, she
combined with the flower’s distinctively
nonetheless feels like ‘a combination
defined eye-like centres, gives the species
of plant breeder and butterfly catcher
an added appeal to Hopton as ‘all-seeing,
because skill, experience, experimenta-
all-hearing creatures.’
tion, patience and chance come into every aspect of their making.’
Despite her devotion to auriculas, the artist uses them as a compositional springboard
The starting point for almost all Hopton’s
in her collages and never a subject per se.
collages – her most recent works included
She emphasises that these are not merely
- is the auricula, a flower developed over
pictures of flowers: ‘The images act as a
many years from a wild species of Alpine
beginning and my imagination, the mate-
primula. Auriculas were first brought
rials I collect and their coming together
to Britain in the 16th century. These tiny
create the results,’ she says. ‘I’m not just
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making a picture of a flower: and it’s
autumn leaves and photographic images
important to me that this is apparent.’
of fried breakfasts are just some of the components that make up the collage
The combinations of precious, hand-
‘Witches’ Butter’ (2016), meanwhile the
made and commercially mass-produced
tartan paper used in ‘The Bonnie Lasses’
materials, which she has amassed over
(2015) is one amongst jostling clusters
decades and continents, are the essential
of segments adorned with marbling,
ingredients for each collage. She comments
repetitive sampler-like patterning and
that ‘I’m as drawn to the ugly as I am to the
rows of kitten heads framed by Christmas
beautiful, in fact, probably more so to the
wreaths, to name but a few of the designs
first, but I think they work to best effect in
Hopton wrangles into an uneasy com-
unison.’ She actively embraces the decora-
positional harmony. ‘I’ve been attracted
tive, declaring, ‘I really dislike white paper
for years to simulated surfaces, loving
– I find it objectionable!’ Her earlier works
the psychological sensation you get when
often incorporated found materials – pom-
faced with faux or hyper-real versions of
poms, sequins, beads and shiny metallic
reality,’ she says. ‘Often the fake creates
stars – that many would dismiss as tawdry
a sort of extra-sensory, uncomfortable
or kitsch and this long-term love of richly
experience within us. I am interested in
detailed surfaces is given full throttle in
the push and pull between the fascination
the exuberant and surprising encounters
and disgust it promotes. At the same time,
within her collages.
I admire and appreciate many crafts, so naturally my collection of papers includes
Papers printed with wood grain, leopard
handmade and marbled sheets.’ Under
print, polka dots, sparkling dew-dropped
Hopton’s eye these disparate and poten-
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tially unruly elements are held in tense
given rise to her own horror vacui. This
equilibrium, reclaimed and redeemed
results in the migration and proliferation
into the realm of art with an elegance that
of the unique vegetable prints into repeat
is nonetheless tinged with discomfort.
patterns on both wallpaper and fabric, which here provide both a backdrop and
Hopton attributes her very particular
a sensation of complete immersion in the
aesthetic and ‘penchant for ugly colours’,
artist’s world.
as well as her fondness for collecting and recycling materials in unorthodox
Hopton’s decision to layer her works
combinations, to her early childhood
within the exhibition reflects both a com-
experience of being surrounded by the
pulsion to collage in three-dimensional
patchwork quilts and knitwear made by
space, as well as a desire to keep the con-
her mother from offcuts of fabric and
versation between her work and the world
repurposed wool. ‘Generally she only
active. Fellow artist and collagist John
had access to fabric she was given, and
Stezaker points out that ‘Collage allows
the wool mainly came from unraveled
the opening up of the unconscious which
knitwear she bought from jumble sales
is very direct. It’s also a way of looking at
because she didn't have the money to buy
what you are consuming all the time. It
it new. This made for a combination of
enables unexpected juxtapositions and
colours and patterns that I knew, even
different ways of perceiving what is there
at a young age couldn’t be described
in front of you.’ For Hopton the collage
as beautiful or pleasing.’ Perhaps it is
carries a similar aesthetic and psycho-
Hopton’s early enveloping within her
logical charge, functioning as an agent
mother’s multicoloured Merzbau that has
to trigger memory, ideas, sensations and
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free association. ‘The process of collage
to outline the sections of her collages may
and the bringing together of disparate
have its origins in her childhood memory
elements accurately reflects how we
of being surrounded by her mother’s balls
remember things and for the most part
of wool and ‘knitted things being undone
I believe, how we experience the world,’
and redone,’ but it is also an artistic device,
she says. ‘Memories are isolated, experi-
a means to make lines with a drawing tool
ence is very often compartmentalised and
that is at the same time a three dimensional
the end result, the final outcome of the
material in its own right. Concurrent with
collision of past and present, is that we
this is the idea too that these lines, lines
perceive so much of it as though it were a
she has referred to as lines of communica-
dream. Concrete reality doesn’t exist – at
tion between her and her deceased mother,
least not as soon as it is overlaid by the
chords reaching back into the past are
next thought, situation or reaction. The
‘almost like words flattened out.’ A silent
act of collage parallels our experience of
dialogue is encrypted in each work.
being alive.’ In her most recent large-scale collages, the Yet, at the same time, the collages are
wool has made a dramatic new departure.
highly formal and reflect the same desire
As well as describing the edges of shapes,
to oscillate between two and three
multiple strands of yarn have now broken
dimensions that in the past found Hopton
free from the picture plane to pour down
painting stylized shadows on or around
the surface of the work and sometimes to
the surfaces of her sculpture and ‘form-
stream all the way down to the ground. It
ing’ paintings in dense metallic paint of
is as if the wool has broken free from its
bronze still-lifes. The wool that she uses
graphic boundaries to assume an addi-
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tional expressive role that asserts both its
ture for her latest works on paper, leaving
material and its metaphorical, as well as
only a trace of the auricula drawings they
its formal qualities. In both the collages
are born from. These works, which carry
‘The Lion At The Gate’ (2018) and ‘Fragile
the collective title ‘Verse’ (2018) and were
Amanita’ (2018) the spaces between the
made during her last summer sojourn
strands allow them to be read as a series of
in upstate New York deceptively appear
vertical lines as well as an emotive cascade.
abstract. Hopton erases choice lines from
Another work, ‘Vesuvius’, (2016-17) lives
her drawings, leaving a combination of
up to its name with three dense eruptions
marks that she believes will give her a
flowing – almost vomiting – from the
new and interesting starting point. ‘As
centre of the flower forms. For Hopton it is
soon as you remove parts of the recognis-
important that these vertical outpourings
able image, you’re left with these curves
also deflect from the work’s floral origins.
and angles, and they have their own
‘You become less aware that you are look-
energy and movement – there is some-
ing at a flower, and that's important to me,’
thing choreographic and orchestral about
she says.
making them and in what remains visually – which is really enjoyable,’ she says.
Painterly, liquid, hairy and rich in colour
‘When I walk across our land, which con-
and texture, these wooly outpourings
tains much rampant growth, wildflower
further complicate the collages and charge
meadows, a wood and a bog, I am often
them with myriad new readings.
struck by the sight of “natural drawings”. Nature shows us drawings in space all the
Similarly, Hopton has obscured the role
time – with the branches of shrubs and
of the flowers that form the initial depar-
trees and the stems of flowers and crops –
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and these pieces came from the memory
and is equally haunted by Rimbaud’s line
of these walks.’
‘it is she, the little girl, dead behind the rose bushes.’ She acknowledges that, like
Hopton originally incorporated flowers
her many artistic predecessors, much
into her art because she thought that,
of her obsession with the floral lies in ‘a
given their genteel, passive and gen-
perverse desire to make the ephemeral
der-based connotations, they would be
permanent.’ For just as the flower exists
a perfect subject to subvert. As all these
in order to perpetuate itself, so, within
new works continue to confirm, things
her various budding groves, Hopton
have turned out rather differently. Both
makes work in order to celebrate the
formally and conceptually flowers and
miracle of life, to live on and extend into
plants continue to be a crucial source of
another realm.
inspiration and her relationship to the world of horticulture is a rich, evolving and constant one.
Louisa Buck is a London-based writer and broadcaster on contemporary art.
In two of her favourite quotes from Emily Dickinson, ‘my hope put out a petal’ and ‘the shouting flower’, Hopton cites the power of a flower to embody the force of life, in all its beauty and tenacity. At the same time she is also drawn to the darkness and intimation of mortality that comes with the flower’s blooming,
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'While guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages and wrote with all our might. We were seeking an art based on fundamentals, to cure the madness of the age and find a new order of things that would restore the balance between heaven and hell.' - Hans Arp
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The Lion At The Gate Wool on painted paper, 2019 Signed in pencil verso 136 Ă— 129.6 cm
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Another Difficult Season's Vegetable Print (xi) Acrylic with leaf, sticks and collage on paper, 2015 Signed in pencil verso 76.2 Ă— 55.9 cm
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A Season of Space (vii) Acrylic, leaf, sticks and collage on paper, 2017 Signed in pencil verso 76.2 Ă— 55.9 cm
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Witches' Butter Collage, wool and string on painted paper, 2016 Signed in pencil verso 176.5 Ă— 160.3 cm
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Shining Hour Collage and wool on paper, 2015 Signed in pencil verso 152.5 Ă— 123.8 cm
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‘When I walk across our land, which contains much rampant growth, wildflower meadows, a wood and a bog, I am often struck by the sight of “natural drawings”. Nature shows us drawings in space all the time – with the branches of shrubs and trees and the stems of flowers and crops – and these pieces came from the memory of these walks.’ – Georgie Hopton
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Clouds In My Coffee Wool and collage on paper, 2015 With artist's handmade frame Signed in pencil verso 56 Ă— 45.5 cm
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The Bell Ringers Collage and wool on paper, 2017 Signed in pencil verso 68 Ă— 56.3 cm
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Verse (vi) Wool, stick and beans on paper, 2018 Signed in pencil verso 76.2 Ă— 55.9 cm
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Verse (ix) Wool, stick and beans on paper, 2018 Signed in pencil verso 76.2 Ă— 55.9 cm
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The Bonnie Lasses Collage and wool on paper, 2015 Signed in pencil verso 161.2 Ă— 120 cm
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As well as describing the edges of shapes, multiple strands of yarn have now broken free from the picture plane to pour down the surface of the work and sometimes to stream all the way down to the ground. It is as if the wool has broken free from its graphic boundaries to assume an additional expressive role that asserts both its material and its metaphorical, as well as its formal qualities. – Louisa Buck
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Clutch Collage and wool on paper, 2017 Signed in pencil verso 45 Ă— 38 cm
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Little Brother Collage and wool on paper, 2017 Signed in pencil verso 45.5 Ă— 37.5 cm
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Vesuvius Collage and wool on painted paper, 2016-19 Signed in pencil verso 183 Ă— 144.2 cm
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Yellow Edges Wool and collage on paper, 2009 Signed in pencil verso 43.1 Ă— 35.2 cm
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The Next Fancy Collage and wool on paper, 2009 Signed in pencil verso 43.1 Ă— 35.2 cm
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Pamino With Windmills Wool and collage on paper, 2012 Signed in pencil verso 64.5 Ă— 52.5 cm
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... (in the world of flowers) ‘This stands for that. Flowers by their very nature, traffic in a kind of metaphor, so that even a meadow of wild flower brims with meanings, not of our making. Move into the garden however and the meanings only multiply as the flowers take aim, not only at the bees or the bats or the butterfly’s obscure notions of the good or the beautiful, but at ours as well. Sometime long ago, the flowers’ gift for metaphor, crossed with our own and the offspring of that match, that magical symbiosis of desire, are the flowers of the garden.’ - Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire
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Fragile Amanita Wool on painted paper, 2018 Signed in pencil verso 141 Ă— 137 cm
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Temple (i) Acrylic, stick and wool on painted paper, 2013 Signed in pencil verso 70 Ă— 49.7 cm
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Little Beasts Collage and wool on paper, 2012 Signed in pencil verso 68 Ă— 56 cm
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The Shouting Flower Wool and cellophane on paper, 2012 Signed in pencil verso 52.7 Ă— 42 cm
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Cloe (i) Wool and collage on paper, 2010 Signed in pencil verso 43.1 Ă— 35.2 cm
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‘I’ve been attracted for years to simulated surfaces, loving the psychological sensation you get when faced with faux or hyper-real versions of reality,’ she says. ‘Often the fake creates a sort of extra-sensory, uncomfortable experience within us. I am interested in the push and pull between the fascination and disgust it promotes.’ – Georgie Hopton
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The Cotton-Handled Echo (after Arp) Collage and wool on paper, 2015 Signed in pencil verso 68.8 Ă— 49 cm
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A Season of Hope (i) Acrylic, leaves, sticks and bean on paper, 2018 Signed in pencil verso 76.2 Ă— 55.9 cm
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A Season of Hope (iv) Acrylic, leaves and sticks on paper, 2018 Signed in pencil verso 76.2 Ă— 55.9 cm
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Stromboli Hand-knotted handspun wool rug, 2017 Unlimited edition Courtesy Christopher Farr Rugs 172 Ă— 240 cm
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BIOGRAPHY
Georgie Hopton (born 1967, North Yorkshire) lives between London and Upstate New York. Since graduating from St. Martins in 1989, she has continued to expand her use of varied media, all of which are underpinned by her affinity for the natural world. Hopton works across photography, collage, printmaking, sculpture and textile, often combining these within one work. Most recently, she has applied her unique aesthetic to wallpaper, fabric and rugs. Classical themes of still life, self-portraits and studies of flowers are consistent threads, woven through explorations into abstraction and pattern. Like her heroes of the Wiener Werkstaette and the Arts and Crafts movement, Hopton's heart lies in creativity with no boundaries; the melding of art and life. Hopton's work is housed in several permanent collections including the Arts Council collection. Public commissions can be seen at the Home Office and Royal London Hospital. Hopton was nominated for the Max Mara prize in 2007. That same year the Guardian named her as one of 'the next generation of cutting-edge artists.’
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SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibitions 2019
Within a Budding Grove, Lyndsey
Group Exhibitions 2016 Five Years at Heddon Street, Pippy
Ingram, London
Houldsworth Gallery, London
2018
Local Colour, Filet, London
Found, curated by Cornelia Parker,
2012
The Wounded Tulip, Poppy Sebire
Foundling Museum, London Gallery, London
2014
Colour As Form, curated by David Bachelor, Galeria Leme, Sao Paolo
2010 The Naked Gardener, Brancolini Grimaldi, Rome
2013
Something About A Tree, curated by Linda Yablonsky, Flag Art Found-
2008 The Three Cornered Hat, The New Art
ation, New York
Centre, Wiltshire In Cloud Country, curated by Iwona Blaswick, Harewood House, Yorkshire 2008 Prophet, Spike Island, Bristol
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Published by Lyndsey Ingram Designed by Lucy Harbut Printed by Dayfold Cover image Endless Column, 2012 Endpapers Dropped Cherries, 2012 p.8 Yellow Edges, 2009 (detail) p.16 The Bonnie Lasses, 2015 (detail) p.26 Little Brother, 2017 (detail) p.36 Fragile Amanita, 2018 (detail) p.46 Shining Hour, 2015 (detail) p.56 Witches' Butter, 2016 (detail) p.64 Artist in her studio, 2019 Photograph by Stephanie Wolff p.67 The Bell Ringers, 2017 (detail) Artwork photography by Jamie George Images Š 2019 Georgie Hopton