Chris Hipkiss
VISIONARY LANDSCAPES24.9. – 24.10.2009
Chris Hipkiss’ art stands outside all artistic trends. It has no predecessors or models and is created solely out of the condition, the motivation and the imagination of the artist. Stylistically there is no essential development in Chris Hipkiss’ work in the sense of refinement or perfection – the works are formulated as self-contained from the very beginning. Hipkiss describes himself as a “contemporary autodidact”. In spite of his protest his output is often included with “Outsider Art”, largely due to an eponymous exhibition in the London Tate Britain. In 2005 the museum showed a selection of Chris Hipkiss’ works from their own collection. The term “Outsider Art” can be deceptive. Originally it referred to artistic creation independent of any artistic movement, creation derived without art historical reference solely from an investigation of the subject’s psyche. In the case of Chris Hipkiss, in contrast, his more recent drawings carry a clear political statement: using humour and bitter seriousness, fantasy and realism the environmental activist creates surreal and apocalyptic visions of our world.
Chris Hipkiss was born in 1964 into a successful working-class family in Uxbridge, in the area surrounding London. On the weekends the family often spent time on the Thames. These boating trips awakened Hipkiss’ interest in nature. As a teenager he began to observe the flora and fauna, memorizing their Latin names and expanding his knowledge through books. At 16 he left school and began an apprenticeship in his father’s joinery business. He built models and prototypes for tool companies such as Black & Decker, among others. Later Hipkiss was accepted into a geography degree program at an English college (1996). Alongside his duties in the family business he completed drawings and small scribblings. The motifs begin to repeat, the statements are often political. In 1983, when he met his future wife Alpha Mason, his drawings took on a larger format, drawn in soft lead pencil or silver point. They are not derived from a through-composed idea, but develop over the course of the drawing. Motifs cover the entire surface like an even pattern. In 1989 Hipkiss and his wife moved to the small town of Doddington in Kent, southeast of London. The couple led a modest life, making their living partly with odd jobs. The artist developed his typical style: since 1990 mysterious battles take place in large-format, often threatening fantasy landscapes and unreal cities. His most recent drawings clearly signal danger. Half-monstrous machines, half-organic formations remind one of cannons and machines of war advanced for attack. Swarms of birds become fighter planes in a hail of bombs, thorny plants mutate between abandoned factory chimneys and metal pipes. Nature is pruned into strictly ordered plantations that could just as well be cemeteries. The ruthless handling of nature is heard in his works. People walk through a life-threatening, utopian architecture as humorous, small beings with a female appearance. As if from another world they perform mysterious, almost archetypal movements; they are seen as androgynous, as symbols of an alter ego of the artist. Hipkiss works slowly in his shared studio. He completes a large-format work in one to two years. Up to this day Hipkiss experiences the creative partnership with his wife as not only a focal point and feeding ground for his work. The artist described the “harmonious coexistence” of the two as “prerequisite for his artistic creation”. It was through contacts in London and to an American collector of “Outsider Art” that Hipkiss’ work was first shown in British exhibitions. Serious interest and the first sales, however, came first from America. In 2001 Hipkiss moved to southern France, where today he lives with his wife in the country.
Caroline Flosdorff
A catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition.