Erik Hoffmann

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Island Universe

Strung out to the north-west coast of Scotland the Hebrides have been more than a home to Erik Hoffmann. Having made 'his' discovery of the island more than 10 years ago, they have provided vivid inspiration for his imagination. Hoffmann's paintings in egg tempera redefine everything by passing it through the eye of the needle of the Hebrides.

Hoffmann lives and works in a former coast guard station located on a spit of land in the middle of nowhere on the west coast of the Isle of Barra. Sir Compton MacKenzie, a sometime friend of D. H. Lawrence, and who was referred as 'the man who loved islands', was a previous owner of the dwelling. This spit of land is Hoffmann's innermost cosmos nestled within a greater one - the island - which is itself representative of any one of the Western Isles.

"It's strangeness, its magic, and at the same time its familiarity is something I've never met anywhere before. It's as if since the beginning of time, I've been part of this place."

Hoffmann paints the spit of land, the island, and its inhabitants. Making contact with these is seldom direct, requiring long and careful scrutiny over many years.

"A painter should know his subjects over a long period, over generations preferably, because the roots of a character lie in the past."

In the class of narrative painters, there are only a few who can create worlds and whose subjects, obvious to the presence of the public, and thus never vying for their attention, are allowed to play the role the painter hat intended. I once entered a room filled with Hoffmann's paintings and was suddenly encircled by these severe looking characters. I hardly ventured to speak, for fear that a single uttered sound could destroy the depth and stillness these figures had sworn upon. None would look at me directly, not even the morose artist, who, like the others, looking perplexed, gazed into the distance as if witness to some fore-going act which should not have been allowed to occur. And what were they doing? Nothing. That is to say they were fully preoccupied in their silence. Lips tightly sealed and their stares fixed in different directions, not in anticipation but in humble submission, ready for whatever may come. So they stood, motionless, as if made of stone: People, young and old, sheep, cows, waterfowl, or - as in Hoffmann's newer 'topiaries' - peacocks and dogs, quite ugly ones, who seemed to be waiting for relief of their dutiful presence, which seems to make them so unhappy (APRIL DAYS, 1990; SOMERSET SUNSET, 1990).

"I personally don't think it is possible to immortalize present reality and a picture's occupants through freezing motion or movement, because that single movement cannot depict the whole or assence of a subject. Probably only the subject in complete stillness may bring across the idea of that person's being."

The mostly dark landscapes kept in very earthy tempera tone behind Hoffmann's figures are created in a very time consuming technique and demonstrate his rejection of glitter. For a short period, Hoffmann snatched his subjects away from their dark loneliness and places them onto imaginary light, to become companions in misfortune, travellers in a tragic world, recognizable as the Hebrides but meant to be the whole cosmos.

Hoffmann's impulse to paint seems of a double nature, - that of projection and of identification with the model and thereby the ensuing wish to hold it fast for the duration of the painting process, and further, to live each facet of the subject as if it were he himself. Not unlike a good actor playing Hamlet who through his strength and power of soul transposition 'becomes' Hamlet, so too does Hoffmann slip into the role of his subjects. There exists between reality and imagination a third way which unites these two, creating a syntheses which we can experience. What we see in his picture are artificial figures, created with the intent to touch us deeply, maybe even shake us, using what seems to be disparate objects.

"My subjects are timeless and it would be contradictory were I to cloth the figures in contemporary clothes from the store counter. Clothes are protection in every sense but especially protection against which intrudes from the outside, foremost psychological aggression. My subjects are injured people and their clothes are attributes of their injuries."

Recurrent elements are the secretive correlations and correspondences which the artist employs and indeed are interesting to focus upon for they convey the depth and richness on Hoffmann's art. Of particular note: A wave 'manifests' in the wave-like forms of a sand dune (ISLAND BEAUTY, 1986); stars turn to glittering lights in the eyes of an old woman (CASSIOPEIA, 1988); a rainy Atlantic day mirrored in the eyes of the artist (ON A LEE SHORE, 1992); a lone cow's back against the reptilian back of 'the point' (THE POINT: THE DYING OF THE LIGHT, 1992); the warming fire of a last summer's day enfolds the waving grass of a sand dune, to serve as a symbol for the flickering awakening of slumbering sexuality in a young girl (SUMMER'S END, 1991); the harpoon of a whaler's monument threatening to descend onto someone's head thus showing the vulnerability and tragic existence of an individual (WHALEBONE, 1990); the painting THE POINT: THE HOUR OF SOLITUDE (1993) becomes a simile for evolution and destruction just as in Giovanni Segantini's (1858-1899) paintings who as well climbed the hills and climbed to reach the mountains and then reached the peaks "for no other reason then to convey the fascinating passion that drove me to devote my whole love to them" (Segantini, in a letter to Vittore Grubicy in Milan).

Therein lays the plan for another world, where all is surveyable, devoid of alienation, where things are simple and meaningful. Where the basic nature of the Hebrides is seen under two aspects: The present and the eternal, material and spiritual at the same time, promising an orientation, clarity, and even redemptation.

The complexity of Hoffmann's technique affords great effort and concentration. His method enables momentary contradictions in treatment of his motives, giving them tension and guarding them against triviality. The technique permits him to guide his material with subtle undertones that hint at the fragility, provisionality and perviousness of reality. It transforms the surface of hills into vibr