Anthony Hopkins

Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney
Through February 17

The sheets of paper are small, and the drawings on them are smaller. At times they look like teardrop patterns. Or perhaps microbes, or some other organic form of life. Despite the scale—or perhaps because of it—these are enticingly beautiful works. The chosen medium is colored pencil. The touch is light. The tonal range has no dark browns or grays, only clear tones of innocence.

Hopkins is a disabled artist. He is autistic, seeing the world in different way than most, aware of sensations that others cannot dream of. Because of his medical condition he is unable to endure the standard academic career path of the artist—art schools and busy galleries are not for him. Instead Hopkins, with the support and encouragement of his mother, developed his art as a private interest. Because she too is an artist, Hopkins’ mother was able to encourage him to share his vision with people he could never otherwise meet.

Hopkins has been drawing his small, obsessive fantasies for many years now. Art has become his means of communication with a world that he cannot decipher. The drawings can be seen as a code, a way of translating a private world, of seeing into his mind. And who is to say whether his way of seeing is more valid than ours? Hopkins shows us a highly desirable micro universe of auras and energy, of wizard lights and meadow jewels. Small objects are filled with patterns or surrounded by shadows of pure color.

Over time, he has evolved into a technically competent master of the pencil, operating happily in miniature. His works radiate innocence while keeping a sense of the formal qualities of line, balance, and color.




Joanna Mendelssohn