Esther Hoflick

STATEMENT

​I am fascinated both by materials and by philosophies of matter. Specifically, I’m curious how we perceive ourselves in relation to the physical world and how these intrinsic perceptions are paralleled, metaphorically, by the act of creating visual objects.

In consequence, I’ve been thinking in terms of new materialist philosophies which are an environmentalist and feminist way to interpret the interactions between internal perceptions and the external world. Fluctuating between representation and abstraction, my artworks use the malleability of visual language to address these ambiguities of perception.

I am currently painting with an oil emulsion on plaster where the pigment and surface become inseparable, much as we are inseparable from our physical environment. I think of the paintings as objects in the world and so place the works in conversations amongst themselves and with the space around them. By filtering my own experiences of place and body through neo-materialist thought processes and the act of painting itself, images surface, hover indeterminately. The paintings reference an almost schizophrenic understanding of the rhizomatic nature of all and everything, while brooding on specific moments of intra-acti...

EDUCATION

2017-2019 Masters of Fine Arts - Univesrity of Ottawa, Ottawa Ontario, Canada.
2004-2007 Baccalaureate of Arts, Honours Program, (majoring in Studio Art, minoring in English Literature & graduating with distinction), University of Guelph, Guelph Ontario

2008 Haliburton School of the Arts, Post Graduate Certificate- Expressive Arts, Haliburton, ON

2010 Haliburton School of the Arts, Business for Artists, Haliburton, ON

2012-2013 Centre St. Louis, French as a second Language, Montreal, QC

SOLO PROJECTS
2024 As the Light Comes In, Doris, Alberta (currated by Peter and Magnus Von Teisenhausen.)
2019 Unnaming, Karsh Masson Gallery, Ottawa, ON
2016 Drawings of the Yukon, Galerie d’Art LSB, Montreal, QC
2015 She Hill, Warkwarth Pop up Art, Warkwarth, ON
2014 Paintings of the Unseen, Galerie d'Art LSB, Montreal, QC
2010 The Saturna Landscapes, Sasquatch Art Centre, Keene, ON

SELECTED GROUP PROJECTS

2022-2025- Touching the Sky, TREX NW, Alberta
2019 SWAP, Audain Gallery, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC
2018 MFA responses, Gallery 115, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
2017 Paradigm Gallery, with Annie Thibault, University of Ottawa, Ottawa ON
2017 RIMAV, Galerie UQO, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, QC
2017 Working Space, Gallery 115, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
2017 MFA Introduction, Gallery 115, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
2016 Riverside Arts Festival, Klondike Institute for the Arts, Dawson City, YT
2016 Under 35!, Artotheque, Montreal, QC
2014 Artfetch Featured Collection, Artfetch, Dublin, Ireland.
2013 Miniateures, Espace Project Art Contemporain, Montreal, QC
2013 Articulation, Viva Vida Gallery, Saint-Claire, QC
2011 Hallowed Ground, Culture Days Canada, Ignatious Forest,...