Acrylic, & “Maple Morning” vinyl stock image wallpaper
Camille Hoffman
Official Sites: Website | Instagram
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Camille Hoffman (b. 1987, Chicago, IL) earned an MFA from Yale University (2015), a BFA from California College of the Arts (2009), and was a recipient of the Carol Schlosberg Memorial Prize for excellence in painting from Yale University, a National Endowment for the Arts scholarship, a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, and the Van Lier Fellowship from the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and in Europe and has been featured in publications including Art in America and The New Yorker. Solo exhibitions include Landing For Lolo at NADA House Governors Island (2021), Excelsior: Ever Upward, Ever Afloat at the Queens Museum (2019), and Pieceable Kingdom at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY (2018). Prominent group exhibitions include Here We Land at Wave Hill (2019), A Thousand Plateaus at Jenkins Johnson Gallery, LifeWtr Open Gallery at Lincoln Center and Times Square, New York, NY (2017), and Music and Conversation at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (2015). Hoffman has been an artist-in-residence at Fountainhead, Miami, FL (2021), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council SU-CASA (2019), Children’s Museum of Manhattan, New York, NY (2018), Wave Hill Winter Workspace, Bronx, NY (2018), QueenSpace, Long Island City, NY (2017), Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY (2017), and the Yale University Office of New Haven and State Affairs, New Haven, CT (2015). Hoffman has also worked for 16 years as an arts educator and community organizer in Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, New Haven, and New York City. She currently lives and works in New York, NY, teaches at The Cooper Union, and is a visiting critic at Yale University.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Reflecting on the construction of landscape, both natural and manufactured, “Michigan Landscape ” critically draws upon the language of historic romantic American Landscape painting and contemporary kitsch to speak to the urgent environmental reality facing low-income communities of color in the state at large. Considering the genesis of the Maple tree in the wood boards of the gallery’s original floor and the contours of an oil refinery plant in southwest Detroit, Hoffman carves and paints into a massive vinyl stock image of fiery Michigan Maple trees, revealing a contrasting silhouette of a warped Marathon Oil set ablaze. In April of 2013, three thousand residents were ordered to leave their homes and evacuate the area due to this fire – one of many incidents related to the oil, coal, automobile, and water waste industries polluting the surrounding area and affecting the health and livelihoods of the people who live there.
CREATIVE PRACTICE
My art practice is studio-based, but I draw a lot from the history, communities, and architecture of the locations where I install as I create. My work is informed by the conversations that occur in relation to these sites.
EXAMPLES OF ARTIST’S WORK
Photo from Pieceable Kingdom – MAD Museum.
Work created by Camille Hoffman.
Photo from Rockabye My Bedrock Bones – False Flag Project.
Work created by Camille Hoffman.
Photo from Landing for Lolo.
Work created by Camille Hoffman.
Photo from Pieceable Kingdom – MAD Museum.
Work created by Camille Hoffman.
Photo from Excelsior: Ever Upward, Ever Afloat – Queens Museum.
Work created by Camille Hoffman.
Photo from Las Américas (en el hogar) – Wave Hill.
Work created by Camille Hoffman.
