Hooper Turner “WEIRD”

FROSCH&CO

This event has ended.

Explain to me how you would describe your next show.

I think all the new paintings are small cuts from larger stories. Like glimpses of stories so you have to fill in the blanks. The people in them are lonely, even if they are in groups of people. You almost never see their faces.

And?

The subjects are getting ready for people to see them, to present themselves, but we see them before that moment. The figures are waiting for a spectator or possibly the spectators were there but now they’re gone, so many of the paintings are about the loneliness that happens in between.

Why do you think you made them?

Because that feeling is one of the melancholy experiences of life, and I want to communicate that.

What do you mean? Can you say more about it?

Well, I often feel very lonely when I’m getting ready to go to a party, in those moments before I arrive, or when I was younger, backstage getting ready to play a school concert.

Why?

I don’t know really—it’s the sadness of being behind the scenes. It’s like the scene in the movie “The Prestige” when the magician has to take a bow under the stage in order for the trick to work, so he isn’t the one who receives the applause.
You told me you did musical theater. What was it like that moment before you went on stage? What if you went out and there was no one there? Or after your performance, you simply disappeared?
Let me give you another scenario. What if you had an appointment that you were dreading, say to a psychologist or someone who was going to decide your future, and you had to climb these steps to a high floor. You would be so nervous, and maybe all you could concentrate on is making it up one stair after another.
How do you see the paintings?

I think they are a melancholic attempt of seeing in the world something that is inside of you or…that is missing inside of you. They are pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit right anywhere. You take them and expose them. Like, nobody would ever make a painting of “behind the scenes” but you do it. The people have many stories and the places have many characters—maybe their lives interconnect without them knowing it.

I like that interpretation very much. Thank you.

WEIRD is New York based Hooper Turner’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.

Born in Charlotte, NC, Hooper Turner lives and works in New York. He received his B.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and his M.F.A. from the University of Georgia at Athens.