Tapestry of Life: Gregory Hodge

Over the last year I’ve been working in a studio in Ivry-sur-Seine, a 25-minute bike ride from my apartment in Paris. Along this ride is the Jardin des Plantes, the city’s largest botanical garden. On numerous visits there I’ve taken photos and have incorporated these into drawings and collages. Some of these preparatory works have become source material for the greenery and foliage in my new paintings.

Just beyond these gardens is the Manufacture des Gobelins, a museum and manufacturer of tapestries in Paris operating since the seventeenth century. This year, I have often spent time looking at the surfaces of tapestries, how they drape on the wall and how the imagery is imbedded within the warp and weft of the thread.

The representational elements in this new work are painted using tools and techniques I have developed to mimic a tapestry surface. The interiors in the new paintings are constructed spaces, collaged photographs, drawings and patterned fabrics. These compositions incorporate an open or partially opened window with a view to an outside space. They call to mind the work of Matisse whose open windows and interiors were intertwined with pattern and ornamental motifs. I have also painted trompe l’oeil borders of tassels and rippled fabric, which are a playful suggestion to the edges of a hanging tapestry.

Gregory Hodge in his Paris studio, 2021

myparisportraits

These paintings have sweeping ribbon-like marks that appear superimposed, obscuring recognisable readings of the scene behind. These illusionistic gestures which are a recognisable trope in my work, seem to hover slightly off the surface, an optical illusion achieved by sharp edges and painted cast shadows.

Gregory Hodge in his Paris studio, 2021

Atelier La Fabrique