Andrea Hopkins

The amount of people who have said to me "I wish I could paint..."
I say to them "Go on then! Less hui-hui, more doey-doey!".
They reply "No I can't... not good enough" or "I don't know what to do".
A wall of judgement falls on their knife edge separating the possibility of beauty (I can) and internal fear (I can't). They say paint what you love.
I love land.
I paint it a-bit.
Sadly, I claim none.
The lands my tupuna walked are far from the place I call home, mostly signed away long before I was born. I was raised in 70's middle-class suburbia to the catch cry of "halfcast dirty a*se!" with a deep longing for a 'place to stand' that I can make my own.
When I paint whenua I connect with those feelings.

It isn't easy to be faced with a blank surface knowing that you expect yourself to manifest beauty, character, history, emotion, wairua - a sense of place, of being.
The historical movement of 'naive' painting is much more honest than most and deeper than many believe. I would like to stand in the 'naive' box proudly. Who wants to be a kai-whaka-know-it-all anyway?

Do not kid yourself tho.
Painting as a profession is not easy for most.
It takes a personal toll and you sacrifice many things.
If it were easy everyone could stare at a blank space and in a very Duchampian way merely point at something and say to another "make it!