Georgie Hopton

Georgie Hopton has generously produced Wet Fires, 2023, a limited edition artwork in support of Tate. Hopton creates collages in beautiful and strange compositions which allude to the natural world. For her Tate edition, Hopton has used paper from a range of sources, which she collects from paper shops in Europe and vintage wallpaper rolls, as well as pieces of yarn to create a unique collage. The collage was photographed, capturing the textures and shadows of the collage, and printed in an edition of 40 with pigment ink and silkscreened colour and spot varnish. Hopton, who is interested in the illusions created by layering, has then hand-finished each print with yarn. Of Wet Fires, Hopton says:

Gerard Manley Hopkins said of Spring

What is all this juice and joy?

The same could be said of Autumn, when the rain puts out the crackling flames of leaves that litter the ground and the heart and mind, sparked in turn, blaze with a near euphoria, ignited by the negative ions released through the dousing. The Fall dispenses its particular narcotics and I, helpless as an addict, stumble clumsily from one to the other, lit.

• Artist Georgie Hopton
• Artwork Wet Fires
• Dimensions 62.1 x 52.65 cm
• Material Digital pigment print with two colour screen print and varnish hand-finished with yarn, on Somerset Satin Enhanced 330 gsm paper
• Edition Edition of 40, signed and numbered on the back
• Date of work 2023

Georgie Hopton (b. 1967, N Yorkshire, UK) graduated from Central St Martins in 1989. Working in two and three dimensions, her practice has incorporated most every discipline over the years, but for some time now she has devoted most of her time to collage, printmaking and textile works which incorporate rugs, fabric and wallpaper. Amassing a huge collection of fine and mass produced papers and yarns, the artist mines these along with collected and dried fragments from the natural world to create her collages. Rooted in an unending fascination with the auricula (flower) and her memories and relationships with living and remembered rural landscapes, these exist alongside her seasonal production of Veg Prints and repeat patterns which grew out of a passion for vegetable gardening, nurtured and then extended into her studio practice each season. Hopton has exhibited widely, including solo shows at Lyndsey Ingram (UK), Poppy Sebire (UK), Milton Keynes Gallery (UK), Cabinet (UK) and Brancolini Grimaldi (Italy), and group shows at The Foundling Museum (UK), The Lowry (UK), Spike Island (UK), Kate MacGarry (UK), The New Art Centre (UK). Spruth Magers, (Germany), Flag Art Foundation (NY) and Galeria Lema, Sao Paolo (Brazil). Hopton was shortlisted for the MaxMara Art Prize in 2007 and has public artworks at both the Royal London Hospital and The Home Office. Her work is included in the Arts Council Collection and Tate. She lives and works in London, UK.