The artist Karen Finley finds it hard not to think about Edward Hopper when she's working. Mainly because her studio, on the second floor of Nyack's Hopper House Art Center, used to be Hopper's bedroom.
"I do have a studio there and I used to live in Upper Nyack so I have a sense of memory and place in responding to Hopper," says Finley, who now lives in Sleepy Hollow, but continues to cross the bridge to draw inspiration from the private space. The bedroom, says Finley, was the setting for some of Hopper's paintings such as "Summer Interior."
"Much of Hopper's work responds to light, the same light that I see through the glass panes, the same windows I stare out to the Hudson River," she says.
Some of Finley's work, and that of two dozen artists, makes up a new exhibit at the Edward Hopper House Art Center that opens today. "Hopper Re-Imagined," is a multi-media group show that showcases the work of Hopper, a Nyack native, uniquely interpreted or "re-imagined."
"There is an amazing range of talents included in this show and I love that we can show how Hopper's influence has moved well beyond the two-dimensional picture plane to include video and sculpture," says Carole Perry, the executive director of the Edward Hopper House Art Center.
Later in the year , the Art Center will present poetry readings, films, plays, and a site-specific light installation based on Hopper.
Randy Ford's approach seems like a very literal exploration. His oil painting "Redemption" is a reimagining of Hopper's 1942 work, "Nighthawks," possibly the most recognizable of the artist's works.
Ford, a realist painter from Mississippi, captures Hopper's moody sense of place and time, and his modern coffee-shop denizens seem as isolated of those of Hopper. But if you look closer, the man in the hat is Steve Martin; his companion is Bernadette Peters!
"You know, it wasn't based on Hopper's painting at all," says Ford. "It's actually based on a series of freeze frame images from the film 'Pennies From Heaven.' Steve Martin was a huge Hopper fan."
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