Laura Phipps

In reviewing the applicants for the Hopper Prize, what arises for me are the number of practices that evoke particular intimacies. These intimacies, which unfold across many mediums, suggest a lightness in moving through the world. I do not imply that this is a lightness of emotion or purpose–the world is a heavy place, one’s place in it is not a given–but instead a lightness that recognizes the ephemerality of the world and the vulnerability of all the beings in it. Seemingly approached for a variety of reasons, the intimacies I see translate to a focus on the things we touch,—our own bodies, the bodies of others, objects in our homes, books, leaves, rocks, grass, cement—as well as the things we desire to touch—–the recesses of our unconscious, the knowledge of our ancestors.

The emphasis reaching out, on touch that I perceive speaks to the histories held in objects, even those seem to have little obvious value. What does it mean for artists to hold, to draw, to mold, to capture the things around them…perhaps it is these acts that imbue objects with value or draw their histories out. To paraphrase some of these artists own words, reflected here are practices that emphasize the healing properties of domestic sanctuaries, see joyful rest as an act of reclamation, memorialize the beauty of everyday life, renegotiate the relationship between working and living, use material to deliver untold stories, and embody presence and offer the lightest of touches.

The works made by these artists are shot through with powerful and blatant curiosity about the world around them and, more specifically, the imprints that this world makes on people. These practices often capture the disconnect between the expectations of the world—or even the self—and its actual imprints. There is something both poetic and disconcerting, be it in domestic spaces or on political stages, in the confrontation of that disconnect.