Artist Analysis- Uno Hoffmann: Final Draft

 Uno Hoffmann was born in Canada in 1955, and raised in Stockholm, Sweden as a child. He studied architecture at the University of Toronto, which I think shows through in his later pieces. He began his painting career before he studied architecture, and had his first major solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (Museu Gulbenkian) when he was 24 years old.

Hoffmann’s first exhibition pieces are very different to his more recent pieces that I have looked at.  This is ‘The Soft Roar of the Earth’ for this piece he used pastels whereas now he mainly uses acrylic and pen. I think it’s very clear that he hadn’t been inspired by architecture yet as the shapes he uses are softer and less geometric.

Poetry and writing seems to be a big influence to Hoffmann. Many of his works are based on a response to different pieces of writing or poetry. I have an interest in writing and reading, I took English Literature and therefore could use some of the books I have read as influence for my Art work.

This is one of the main pieces I am looking at, it’s part of a notebook called ‘war music ‘. This particular piece was inspired by a book called War Music written by British poet Christopher Logue. Hoffman has taken a part of a page in the book and put it into this piece. He has also painted the word ‘War’ multiple times and it makes the piece look quite angry. He has also created a red line across the page which to me looks like blood which could represent the blood spilled by war. I’m looking at it because of its clear inspiration from writing/poetry

The majority his more recent pieces contain straight lines and geometric shapes which possibly is influenced by his studies of architecture. He also creates a lot of words and scribbles which could be influenced by writing.

Hoffmann mainly uses acrylic to create his pieces and generally uses pen over the top. For white marks, he seems to use chalk however, I have found that a white pen creates a crisper mark which I prefer, it also makes the marks look more like words which is the effect that I want. He sometimes includes photos in his work which he paints and draws over the top of. He uses pages from books when influenced by a certain piece of writing. In a large portion of his work there are a lot of brown and red tones along with black and white.

This is another one of the main pieces I am analysing; it’s called “Study for the Sea and The Mirror”. His work contains strong contrasts of colour as shown here. He does this by creating a wash of colour as a background and then uses contrasting colours on top (Mainly red). In this piece Hoffmann has instead left a white background; this creates contrast against the black paint.

The Sea and the Mirror is a poem by W.H. Auden. It’s a commentary on Shakespeare’s the Tempest. This is why I am looking at this piece as it has more influences from writing. I’m looking at it also because it has bold colours  which I like and it has straight lines which are featured in many of his pieces. I’m not sure what the number 11 refers to but it could relate to the different parts of the poem. The Piece is 23x50cm, as with a lot of his work it is Landscape.

 In his newest pieces, he has strayed away from that and now uses many different colours. In his work, he sometimes uses the technique of dry brushing to get less ridged shapes, varies his brush strokes to get different textures and he uses different amounts of water to create more transparent or more opaque marks. This creates more contrast and various different types of marks. He also seems to use different materials and fabric to create texture and different layers.

Uno’s work really interests me because of his continuing references to poetry and literature. Reading is a big influence in my life and I think it really links to who I am. Uno also seems to be influenced  by Greek history and mythology, which I was very interested in as a child.