Strictly Personal 2001

Curator: Welcome. Before us is Howard Hodgkin's "Strictly Personal" from 2001, rendered with acrylic paint. Editor: Striking. My initial impression is of raw energy, a landscape viewed through intensely subjective emotion. The broad swathes of color feel almost violently applied. Curator: Indeed. Hodgkin’s application of impasto exemplifies his expressionistic leanings. The layered acrylics, thick and richly colored, betray the act of painting. The artist seems less concerned with representation and more involved in presenting a physical record of gesture. Editor: And gesture is precisely where I see Hodgkin’s commentary on display: What were the artistic and personal contexts surrounding Hodgkin when this piece was realized? Was Hodgkin perhaps responding to trends within abstract expressionism by intensifying or inverting conventions from prior generations? Curator: Interesting perspective, though Hodgkin resisted the label of Abstract Expressionist, positioning himself differently from the New York School, with the likes of Pollock and Rothko. However, we do observe similar attention to materiality and gesture, in Hodgkin’s layering of colors on the surface, with the top layers leaving uncovered glints of the underpainting, giving us that glimpse to its chromatic origins. Editor: I read that uncovered paint as a nod toward its creation. The broad use of these colors recalls the legacy of mid-century Abstraction in American society. However, by the dawn of the new millenium when Hodgkin created "Strictly Personal", what message was Hodgkin sending regarding the status of “personal expression” and modern societies? Curator: In many ways, Hodgkin returned the focus to painting's intrinsic values as an activity divorced from social content. "Strictly Personal," it appears that his abstraction pushes further to achieve pure experience rather than explicit representation, almost a post-formalist strategy after postmodernism. Editor: In this sense, perhaps Hodgkin’s "Strictly Personal" comments on modern individuality in relationship with an unmitigated commercial world that seemed ubiquitous in society by the turn of the millenium. By resisting social messaging in favor of abstraction, does this become his most trenchant observation? Curator: An intriguing suggestion! It seems clear that Hodgkin engages the viewer at an intuitive level. It demands close viewing for any sort of interpretation, but repays with both visceral intensity and quiet intimacy. Editor: And regardless of those personal narratives, as always the value is found in both that art experience and that art object.