MATTHEW HOPKINS
TOM POLO
The pairing of Hopkins and Polo in Uncertain Pastures is fuelled by the artists’ common interests in abstraction and figuration; uncertain picture planes exploring notions of portraiture and the anxieties of the human condition. Mental states are transferred onto the pictorial field as figures morph into abstraction, accenting moments of the ‘in between’ and depicting the face or head as containing the passing of psychological forces.
Hopkins completed a Masters of Studio Art at Sydney College of the Arts in 2007. Recent exhibitions include Volume One: MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2012-13; Facial, with Mary McDougall and Tom Polo, TCB Art Inc, Melbourne, 2012; Bated Breath, Gallery 9, Sydney, 2012; We Call Them Pirates Out Here, curated by David Elliot, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2010; Visage, curated by Felix Ratcliffe, Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney, 2009; and Oblivion Pavilion, curated by Amanda Rowell, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne and Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney, 2008. Hopkins’ work is held in the Artbank and MCA collections, as well as various private collections in Australia and overseas. He is represented by Gallery 9 in Sydney.
Polo graduated from a Masters of Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts, UNSW in 2012. Recent exhibitions include Time & Vision: New Work from Australian Artists, Bargehouse, OXO Tower Wharf, London, 2012; GESTURES AND MISTAKES, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2012; Facial, with Matthew Hopkins & Mary McDougall, TCB Art Inc, Melbourne, 2012; DISAPPOINTED WITH MANY PEOPLE & THINGS, ACME Project Space, London, UK, 2011; and Dot Dot Dot, curated by Lisa Radford, Lismore Regional Gallery, Lismore, 2011. Polo’s work is held in the Artbank collection and private collections in Australia, the UK and USA. He undertook an Australia Council studio residency in London in 2011 and was recipient of the Art and Australia/Credit Suisse Contemporary Art Award in 2012.
