PRESS RELEASE
Geoff Hippenstiel: Murder Ballad
Feb 22 – May 10, 2014
Holly Johnson Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of, Geoff Hippenstiel: Murder Ballad, an exhibition of new paintings that exemplify abstraction and the full texture of the medium. An opening reception will be held for the artist on Saturday, February 22 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. This exhibition marks the artist's first solo show with the Dallas gallery and it continues through May 10.
Even though the artist’s compositions are loosely based on photographs - actual people and landscapes, or reproductions of well-known artworks - Hippenstiel is able to push abstraction in a manner that reinvigorates the materiality of paint. Brush work is evident, but Hippenstiel’s tool of choice is the palette knife supplemented with the unlikely spray gun. He uses diverse materials such as enamel, wax, metallic and fluorescent artist’s pigments, as well as industrial paints. Lavish, viscous, dramatic, and vivid - the paint allows for an illusion of depth while affirming the importance of surface.
Kelly Klaasmeyer recently stated “Hippenstiel pulls off a kind of baroque abstraction in his paintings…uses paint well, and enjoys what it can do, but he’s still keeping one foot on the ground, mining in the real world for inspiration. And he’s making some gorgeous work while he’s doing it.”
Geoff Hippenstiel received an M.F.A. in Drawing and Painting from the University of Houston, TX (2010) and a B.F.A. in Drawing and Painting from the University of Houston, TX (2006). Recent solo exhibitions include Focus: Geoff Hippenstiel, Texas Contemporary Art Fair, Houston, TX (2013); Territorial Pissings, Devin Borden Gallery, Houston, TX (2013); and Focus: Geoff Hippenstiel, Houston Fine Art Fair, Houston, TX (2012). Recent group exhibitions include Outside the Lines, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Houston, TX (2013-2014); GRADE(climbing), Makebish Gallery, New York, NY (2013); Texas Biennial 2013, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; and Just then and again, The UNO St. Claude Gallery, New Orleans, LA (2013).
Since 2010, Hippenstiel’s work has been featured and reviewed in various articles and publications such as: The HoustonPress, Glasstire, Arts+Culture Magazine, Art in America, artltd, the Houston Chronicle, Fluent~Collaborative.org…might be good, Visual Art Source, and many more.