Black Sea (2003)

Louise Hopkins

acrylic on world map

Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums

Classification:

Drawing and Watercolour

Materials:

Acrylic, World map

Physical Object Description:

The work is actually a map of the world covered almost entirely in black acrylic paint - apart from the names of geographical features which refer to colours, such as Greenland and the Red Sea.

Dimensions:

80 x 126.5 x 2.5 cm

Accession Number:

ABDAG014365

Credit:

Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2005

Scheme:

Historic Purchase by Purchaser (1914-2008)

Ownership history:

Purchased from doggerfisher, Edinburgh by Andrew Patrizio for the Contemporary Art Society; presented to Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, 2005

Relationship:

Andrew Patrizio doggerfisher, Edinburgh Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums

Louise Hopkins lives and works in Glasgow. Her practice has involved re-working surfaces which already have a printed pattern or printed information. Working on the reverse side of furnishing fabric, she created a series of paintings, making her own marks in oil paint to recreate the original printed designs.

In Black Sea (2003), she makes marks on a world map but by obliterating it almost completely, destroys its function as a source of information. Within the sea of markings, only the Black Sea, White Sea, Yellow Sea, Red Sea and Greenland remain visible. She picks out the names of the geographical features which refer to colours. Hopkins addresses the idea that maps represent authority and in this seemingly playful process of erasure and exposure she challenges this authority. She takes possession of the map, leaving just a hint of its original form around the edges.

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