Gerald Hopkins: Paintings
The Woodstock Connection
by Susan Hoover

This one-man show, consisting of 34 paintings, opened at the spacious and tasteful Shelley K. Gallery in Saugerties on December 15. Due to the very positive response it has received, it will be extended until February 16, 2008.

Gerald Hopkins lives and works in both Woodstock and New York City. His work has been exhibited in NYC galleries, and additionally, is included in several large private collections throughout the country.

From the moment one enters the gallery, one is mesmerized by the sheer allure of color—singularly and in combination. The mixes are exquisite, the relationships seductive and dazzling—there, on both side walls, beckoning next, a deeper look—the hint of substance through the initial wow of painterly technique and abstraction. Hopkins is in charge here—his acrylic colors demand attention, then command a deeper look at the form or the idea beckoning under the masterful handling of technique. The balance struck, helped greatly by each painting’s title, is complex but there for the unfolding. One of my favorites, for example, and more immediately accessible, is called Galactic Birds II—the title informing what our eyes might perceive initially as a complete abstraction, a swirl of exquisitely compatible shades of greens, aquas, pinks, and oranges on a dark blue background, that, with continued focus, morphs into (if you allow the title to inform your curiosity) two galactic birds in flight through a speckled sky.

Interesting to note that just as there is a teasing peeling back of meaning’s layers, from the initial abstract to an actual concrete connotation, the same kind of multi-dimensionality also exists in the act of observing, as affected by how the painter is painting and manipulating color, line, light, form, and technique. First, and in a very different way than how Seurat handled ‘pointilism’, Hopkins utilizes a very controlled, selective method of ‘dotting’. This, combined with an equally directed choice of colors, which often allows the background color to come through, often reveal the hint of a shape or a form. And it is because of this seductive suggesting, this controlled guidance—that each painting involves an actual journey for the viewer—provided you meet each canvas with a willingness to be led into your own seeing. Secondly, as an added ingredient, which magnifies the 3-D impression that many of them seem to have, some of the paintings wander off into the frame itself, creating an illusion of movement rather than encasement.

This is a show not to be missed.

Susan Hoover is a performing and published poet. She recently moved to Woodstock from the West Village in NYC.