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'Below' - Solo show 108 Fine Art
07/02/2016
Phill Hopkins – Below
An exhibition of new and recent work.
108 Fine Art
16 Cold Bath Road
Harrogate HG2 0NA. UK
Private view Saturday 19 March 14:00 - 17:00
With a performance by cellist Matthew Johnson
Exhibition continues until 9 April 2016
Phill Hopkins writes about this new work:
"Lately, I have turned my attention towards making pictures of people in refugee camps.
This hasn’t been an overtly conscious decision to focus on one particular aspect,
but a case of my continued following of the news narrative. In previous work,
such as the ‘Syria’ series (recently showed in a successful exhibition in China,
which are now in the collection of Nanjing Baijia Lake International Culture Investment Group),
I made reference to the devastating destruction and the fleeing of people from their homeland;
a family watching tanks advancing on the horizon, an ISIS flag flying from the top of a
residential building, women and their children running from a mortar attack and other such depictions.
In this new work I wanted to some how paint the sense of loneliness and fear that I see in the
frightened faces of women and children as they battle with unwanted journeys in foreign lands.
Hounded out of their own country and abruptly greeted by unwelcoming and often violent communities.
I want to honor these people. Those on treacherous journeys, met by aggressive police and controlled
by the horror of razor wire. I make pictures and make reference to images that we can easily miss in
the daily news by being distracted by the weather or Eurovision.
With very ordinary and domestic materials bought at the hardware shop, such as varnish, gloss and
emulsion paints, I try to paint the squalid mud of refugee camps, the unimaginable horror of losing
children and the plight of orphans alone in the ‘jungle’”.
An exhibition of new and recent work.
108 Fine Art
16 Cold Bath Road
Harrogate HG2 0NA. UK
Private view Saturday 19 March 14:00 - 17:00
With a performance by cellist Matthew Johnson
Exhibition continues until 9 April 2016
Phill Hopkins writes about this new work:
"Lately, I have turned my attention towards making pictures of people in refugee camps.
This hasn’t been an overtly conscious decision to focus on one particular aspect,
but a case of my continued following of the news narrative. In previous work,
such as the ‘Syria’ series (recently showed in a successful exhibition in China,
which are now in the collection of Nanjing Baijia Lake International Culture Investment Group),
I made reference to the devastating destruction and the fleeing of people from their homeland;
a family watching tanks advancing on the horizon, an ISIS flag flying from the top of a
residential building, women and their children running from a mortar attack and other such depictions.
In this new work I wanted to some how paint the sense of loneliness and fear that I see in the
frightened faces of women and children as they battle with unwanted journeys in foreign lands.
Hounded out of their own country and abruptly greeted by unwelcoming and often violent communities.
I want to honor these people. Those on treacherous journeys, met by aggressive police and controlled
by the horror of razor wire. I make pictures and make reference to images that we can easily miss in
the daily news by being distracted by the weather or Eurovision.
With very ordinary and domestic materials bought at the hardware shop, such as varnish, gloss and
emulsion paints, I try to paint the squalid mud of refugee camps, the unimaginable horror of losing
children and the plight of orphans alone in the ‘jungle’”.