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Laura Hapka
Artist Statement
Is art the product of the actions required to make it or is it the actions themselves? Primary Process draws on artist Laura Hapka’s art-making process to comment on the relative values of method and meaning in a painter’s work. Using tone-on-tone primary colors—2 reds, 2 yellows, 2 blues—this show reprises the simplification Hapka has pursued recently in her work by simplifying the colors used. Stripping down her technique to its essentials, she paradoxically adds layers of meaning.
Primary colors are uncomplicated, honest and independent—the values that drew Hapka to her Process series. The paintings in this series are multifaceted, but minimal, seizing on the initial (ie. primary) phase of the artist’s process—hand making pure sheets of acrylic paint, which in her prior work she then manipulated and restructured. Arresting the process at this early stage, Hapka now reveals a beauty intrinsic to the materials used, a beauty that does not require manipulation. Her goal: to eliminate unnecessary noise and distraction while still creating an experience for the viewer. Limiting the chromatic range takes that simplicity one step further.
Even at her most minimal Hapka remains a playful artist. The titles for the paintings in the show refer to the time of their creation—the American political primaries of late 2019 and early 2020. Eschewing the minimalist naming conventions of minimalist art (while lightly mocking the typical viewer’s indifference to titles), Hapka again echoes the show’s larger notion that the primary stages of any endeavor determine its ultimate character.
Laura Hapka is a self-taught artist, with undergraduate degrees in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design and a Masters of Business Administration. She lives and works in Oakland, CA. Her work has evolved through experimentation, trial and error, and, correspondingly, the body of work in her Process series is not about individual paintings but about how she arrived at the body of work. She is driven to create work that is pure and aesthetically beautiful.
Mustard & Charcoal
20 x 16 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Two Blues
36 x 36 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Two Reds
48 x 36 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Hotcakes
Primary Process
Exhibition: January 9 to May 1, 2021
Flaxen Hotcakes
framed to 18 x 22 inches
acrylic on mat board
2020
Pecan Hotcakes
framed to 18 x 22 inches
acrylic on mat board
2020
Diaton Hotcakes
framed to 18 x 22 inches
acrylic on mat board
2020
Turkish Blue Hotcakes
framed to 18 x 22 inches
acrylic on mat board
2020
Click on images to enlarge.
Artist Statement
My new Hotcakes paintings are a means to create a complementary echelon in my newest body of work called, Process Series. My Process Series, is built on purifying my progression. It is not about a painting but about how I arrived at the body of work. The goal of the series is to strip down unnecessary noise, distraction, and still create an experience for the viewer. In this series, I isolate a technique used in all my previous artwork. This technique is the act of making pure sheets of hand-painted acrylic paint that I manipulate and restructure.
With Hotcakes, I isolated the acrylic sheets further; removing them from the substrate they were painted on. The name of each piece originated from a name of a color that roughly conveys the color of the two tones. The surname, Hotcakes, originated from the desire for comfort food during the social, economic and health crisis. It is also a quip on the phrase "selling like hotcakes," because they were created to be more accessible to art enthusiasts. The work is minimal and meant to capture and intrigue the viewer with color, texture and form.
Blue Wave
36 x 48 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Red Tide
36 x 60 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Yellow
16 x 20 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Left
16 x 20 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Right
16 x 20 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Primary Report
144 x 60 inches
(6) hand-painted acrylic sheets applied directly to the wall w/(1) oil
and encaustic on linen panel
Red Before Red
36 x 36 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Red States, Blue States, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
(9) 24 x 24 inch panel, grid presentation
Acrylic and encaustic on linen panels
The Yellow Press
120 x 48 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Tone Down 3
24 x 24 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Tone Down 2
24 x 24 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Tone Down 4
24 x 24 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Tone Down 1
24 x 24 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
Nostalgic Purple Void
48 x 48 inches
Acrylic and encaustic
on linen panel
