Peter Hopkins’s work is infused with an admiration for the
ideas of Robert Smithson. He seems to want to make abstract paintings that take
nature, entropy, and industrial waste into account. He also takes dark, murky
photographs of urban trash sites, and in both sculpture and painting, occasionally orchestrates
small-scale versions of the “pours” and “rundowns” that Smithson’s earthworks made famous. This
device works best in “Boxed 30 Foot Pour”.
Several paintings, which the artist refers to as “Covered
Sites” have been made by soaking canvas in water taken from the East
River and gluing thin sheets of nylon or taffeta to its surface. The fabric supplies pale colors like
pink or cream, while the soaking and glue supply incident, a form of hands-off
brushwork. The results are both rugged and beautiful, although – without the
background information – they tend to have the familiar if lyrical blankness of Color Field painting.
All told, this is a highly imperfect and rather immature
show, but also a highly engaging one.