James HOPKINS makes interventions with various objects whose functions and significations have been modified, out of line with their original use and image. The association between the old and the new meaning of each object creates a suspended state of visual perception.
James HOPKINS assembles some everyday objects, easily identifiable at first glance but disconcerting upon closer inspection. The door 'Paradox Passage' has an opening made of two vertical sections standing at right angles to the wall; these sections are attached on either side of two perpendicular mirrors. The door appears to be open or closed depending on one's viewpoint, introducing an alternative dimension to the space. 'Cuttings' is an axe whose handle has been remodelled in the shape of flower just starting to bloom from its stem, a poetic representation of the opposition between nature and a manufactured object. Nature reclaims its rights whilst the manufactured object returns to its material origins. Poetry is backed with humour in 'Rocking Chair', placed on a point of extreme balance, the work is perfect and precarious at the same time and seems to defy the laws of gravity - a three-dimensional snapshot of the exact moment before the fall. Poetry and humour are also to be found in 'Bucket', which encapsulates a perfect holiday paradise scene in a simple bucket. In the miniature masterpiece 'Salvation Lies Within', the form of a pistol is cut out from the pages of an illustrated family bible. A three-dimensional revolver is made from these cut outs, the gun's exact shape embedded inside the holy book - a witty reference to the custom in the wild west of hiding a gun in a dummy bible. In a powerful association, the sculpture also evokes the power of the written word and religion as a source of conflict.
The Simpsons is an anamorphic composition of tiny pieces of bent coloured plastic forming the family portrait with the characters of the eponymous cult cartoon. This contorted representation is only legible from a determined viewpoint; seen from anywhere else, the sculpture is nothing but an abstract and incoherent accumulation. With humour, James HOPKINS associates the classic tradition of anamorphosis with a production of popular contemporary culture - the cartoon, from which the sculpture takes its principal physical form. Seeming to escape the laws of logic, the anamorphisis and the cartoons both comment on the mutability of reality.