Hans Hoffman

Morning Mist, 1958

Ave Maria, 1965

Rising Moon, 1964

Hans Hofmann was a famous abstract expression painter in the 50s and 60s who dealt with color field. What I found most interesting about his work was how it related to my own photography. Recently I have been trying to think a lot more about the role that color plays in my work. While I've never regarded it as the most important aspect, I feel that its something that I need to give a lot more attention to. In his book “The Search for the Real and Other Essays” Hofmann produced "A new type of landscape, one that is composed, not of trees and land, but of the tension between its space, form, color and planes." This statement rang really true with me as soon as I read it. Not only does it perfectly sum his work, but to an extent my own. I feel like in a way my work is a median between these 'trees and land' and the 'color and planes.' While I have not simplified my work to the level that he has I feel like a lot of the core components are the same. His simple yet complex ideas about objects and how they work with positive and negative space were really intriguing to me.

"It was the object that creates the negative or positive space, not, as traditionally conceived, that an object is placed in a space. If an object creates space, then it is light that creates form. Similarly, light makes color in nature, but color creates light in painting."