CAROL HODDER: Facing North

Carol Hodder’s paintings rarely announce their intent in advance, arriving to her instead without fanfare and in their own good time. This means that a painting will usually start without a definite plan and will change and evolve until there is some form of resolution that she can live with. The process remains transitory, but the artist has learned to be patient and to welcome a finished painting like a long-lost friend.

Fleeting influences accumulate incrementally, gently guiding the composition as it emerges and recedes and emerges again from resonant paint textures. Indeed, the artwork almost becomes corporeal by the physical weight of the paint which has accumulated on the canvas - time itself becomes the touchstone that accrues proliferating brushstrokes. Correspondingly, an under-painted canvas would somehow seem like cheating, conspiring against emotions and the senses infused within the impasto.

The beauty within these paintings comes from the fact that the artist has spent quality time with them – in some cases months, years or even on one rare occasion, two decades. She coaxes them to emerge from limbo, willing them to yield to a flourish of colour or the patinated texture that finally unites an image. Importantly, the time taken to ponder and reflect has for this exhibition, allowed Hodder to make some important decisions. Long- standing preoccupations finally emerge from her memory and subconscious and manifest as figurative motifs and architectural structures imbued with an increasingly metaphorical presence.