VIOLET HOPKINS’ drawings and paintings combine layers of appropriation with both a visceral realism and an expressive sense of fantasy. Often inspired by found images of the natural world, Hopkins uses ink, paint, and pencil to conjure vivid scenes that seamlessly incorporate figurative and abstract elements. Her subjects – wild animals, geological formations, flora – transform into abstract patterning, membrane-like forms, and hallucinatory movements. Her renderings of line and color highlight the drawing process, while allowing shifts in consciousness between the real and the imagined. Her works fuse an external world of nature with a psychic world of symbolism and allegory.

SELECTED BIO:

VIOLET HOPKINS (El Paso, TX 1973) lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia.

Selected exhibitions include: Foxy Production, New York (solo); Uschi Kolb Gallery, Karlsruhe, Germany (both 2009); Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; Claremont Museum of Art, CA; Gallery Sora, Tokyo (solo); Galeria Moriarty, Madrid (all 2008); BaliceHertling, Paris (solo) (2007); Rubell Family Museum, Miami; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC (both 2006-7); Foxy Production, New York (solo); David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (solo); Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London (with Lesley Vance); Peres Projects, Berlin (all 2006); The Altoids Curiously Strong Collection (tour) (2005); Deitch Projects, New York; David Zwirner Gallery, New York; CRG, New York (all 2004); and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2003).

Hopkins' work is included in the Jumex Collection, Mexico City; the Sender Collection, New York; and in the collections of the Rubell Family Museum, Miami; the Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among others.

Download Resume (PDF)