Jocelyn Hobbie
The subject of my paintings has been the female figure for a while now, but there has been an evolution in what I’m interested in painting and how I go about it. In earlier works I was interested in depicting emotional/psychological states. They were highly voyeuristic, i.e.: what a woman might be doing in private, caught unaware. As time has passed my focus has shifted a bit from the narrative/psychological content to more formal concerns. Currently the figure acts as a sort of architectural foundation for the painting – it’s my jumping off point for the process of composing the painting, but formal concerns are driving it. I’m not actively looking to depict psychological states, per se, although I am interested in the mood of the picture. Maybe the figure itself is handled more like a straight portrait (which is not to imply I’m ever painting from life). I also don’t want the subject to address the viewer directly, for example, by looking back at the viewer, because that adds a different psychological level or component to the painting – not the kind of engagement or confrontation one sees in Manet’s Olympia, for instance. So nowadays the figure is like a building block or a muse that I follow from one step to the next. Everything is emerging out of what the painting presents and demands. It’s more a process of discovery, which I’m finding to be very engaging and enlivening. The space is ambiguous, more like an atmosphere than a specifically depicted space. I’m almost eliminating the space. Of course the figures exist in the paintings and I like the warmth of the human element, it draws me in, gives me something to grasp and build off of. It is also driven by what I like to paint, whether it’s a face or the patterns and other articulated elements because they are opportunities for color, shape and invention. The intricacy of form and color found in the patterns and backgrounds is how I compose the picture. Those elements started out as details but have kind of exploded out. They draw me into the picture in different ways and I hope the same happens for the viewer.
To view more of Jocelyn Hobbie’s art, go to Fredericks & Freiser Gallery at www.fredericksfreisergallery.com or visit www.jocelynhobbie.com.