Louise Hopkins

This diptych was made by reversing a floral printed commercial fabric, stretching it, and applying numerous layers of a translucent medium. Some of the printed pattern is then carefully painted over in brown so that the result looks quite different from the original fabric, and the prepared but unpainted areas take on a ghostly aura. Hopkins fuses fine-art technique with a decorative every­day material that might be considered in bad taste, as opposed to one in a more purified Modernist style. It recalls carpets, upholstered furniture, wallpaper, and draperies typical of British bed-and-breakfast establishments characterized by multiple floral patterns seemingly in conflict with one another.