The Hepworth Collection acquired the painting ‘Seagulls, Brian Sewell, Kicking etc‘, 1992, by Clyde Hopkins. Blackbird Rook opened its first physical exhibition in collaboration with The Good Ship Presents and the Yorkshire Art Space in Sheffield.
This new body of paintings combines aerial landscapes and floating shapes - figuration, colour-fields, texture and abstraction. ‘Kites' are seen from above - painted with brush, roller and airbrush. They are textured and evidence process and changes in direction through overlapping layers. They show clean, machine-like fades and colour blocks that overwrite thoughts, mistakes and past potential futures.
When we talked about his current position relative to his painting, his reference to a previous Stuart Cumberland as the author of the work suggested that there might be rich parallels to be drawn between working with Cumberland’s painting, working with an artist’s estate and questions of authorship around painting and post-conceptual painting in particular.
