Gregory Hodge: Figures, Lights, and Landscapes

With Kelly Gellatly

Over Zoom between Melbourne and Paris, Kelly Gellatly and Gregory Hodge discuss the artist’s forthcoming exhibition, the influence of Paris and art history on his painting and take a deep dive into his intriguing and complex working methods.

Kelly Gellatly: You arrived in Paris at the start of your Art Gallery of New South Wales residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in October 2019 and have decided to stay. What does the city give to you and your work?

Gregory Hodge: It’s been a real opportunity being in Europe, and particularly in Paris. I think the main thing has been to really spend time looking. It’s always important to spend time looking at work, at exhibitions, at painting. I think though, being here, it’s been a more intentional part of my practice. I’m spending a lot of time looking at works of art in various collections. I see a lot of contemporary painting as well, which has been a really good thing.

KG/ Do you have favourites?

GH/ For this show, I’ve been regularly going through the Louvre tapestry collection and the Gobelins Manufactory to see the collections of tapestries there.

At the Musée d’orsay and the Pompidou, favourite painters at the moment include Vuillard, Matisse and Van Gogh. You can see in their work not only the influence of the patterning apparent in carpets and textiles, but also how the richness of colour and intensity of their painted surfaces relate to the complex surfaces of woven fabrics and tapestries.

I also saw a beautiful show of textiles and paintings by Anni Albers at the Musée d’art Moderne recently.

KG/ 17th-century tapestries have been of particular interest for your new body of work. Can you tell me a little about this? What is it that initially attracted you to them?

EXHIBITION: GREGORY HODGE, FIGURES, LIGHTS, AND LANDSCAPES, 21 JUL – 13 AUG, 2022

+ EMAIL ART@SULLIVANSTRUMPF.COM TO REQUEST A PREVIEW