Don’t Change, Beautiful Boy
The works in Don’t Change, Beautiful Boy are objects, more than paintings. Although using many of the material devices of traditional painting, they step beyond canvas and paint to literally emerge off and over the canvas.
In these works, we see Hoffmann deprioritise his own hand, allowing the materials to speak for themselves. Transparent layers of resin manipulate light and spread a haze over an abstracted impression of coastal colour. These objects are the outcomes of unrushed play and experimentation. Hoffmann wanted to stay true to his childlike impulses which allow for the accidental, the serendipitous, and even failure - which he sees as crucial to the development of this work and his practice at large. We invite you to visit and engage with the works as they are only truly completed when the viewer participates in creating their meaning.
RYAN HOFFMANN
That’s why I have been smirking this whole time, 2022-2023
Oil, gesso, glue size, linen, artist resin, alcohol pigment, aluminium, and screws, on hardwood support
175 x 150 x 5.5 cm