The Aurora Series is an ongoing series of paintings that Hopkins began in the mid-1990s.
'The painting and exhibition of this body of work announced many of the lines of enquiry that have remained consistent within Hopkins's developing practice...In delicate shades of grey-brown and pale blue, reminiscent of Dutch grisaille flower paintings, the large-scale canvases seemed at first to be beautiful paintings of a profusion of flowers in full bloom.
What was not immediately apparent was that the paintings had been made on the back of printed furnishing fabric...and that the flowers came not from the artist's imagination nor a still life study, but directly from the fabric. The grey-brown flowers were painted by the artist on top of those printed in the design...The painted flowers were the result of a meticulous repainting of the print of the fabric, the pale blue of the original flower deleted stroke by stroke.
The place where the image and painting meet vibrates with suppressed tension, the image bringing with it a wealth of meaning based on recognition and social context.'
From Mark Making by Fiona Bradley in Freedom of Information published by The Fruitmarket Gallery, 2005.
Image credits - installation views Alan Dimmick, individual work Ian Nichols
