Ira Hoffecker

My paintings are informed by the different identities cities take
on over a period of time.

I am interested in how different societies
transform and change city spaces over the course of the centuries. My work
examines the relationships between people and cities by responding to constant
change, reconstruction and restoration in the urban landscape.

Decay, erasure, covering, revealing and
rebuilding take place at the same time and are part of my painting practice. I
see my process of covering as a metaphor for forgetting and suppressing the
past. The process of revealing and sanding the surface down alludes to a
process of remembering and acknowledging, reconciling historic events. The
layers are equivalent to the archaeological strata in the evolution of a city.
Places are overlaid with multiple histories, layers of paint cover and obscure
but each coat is also informed by the previous layer.

I adopt geometric shapes inherent in
architecture and maps from different times in history that provide the basis of
my compositional language. Studying history books, maps and photographs, as
well as digesting the city by walking the streets, all inform my understanding
of the identity of a place.

On a personal level, my paintings embody my own
memories and the cities' atmospheres, which I am translating through shapes,
colours and lines: marks that articulate the physicality of painting. I use
painting to explore the city's evolution and add my own experience to the
context.