ADVENT CALENDAR 2021 | Phill Hopkins
As we head into the period that is Advent, we are delighted to once more be presenting a series of 24 photographs by artist, and regular BasementArtsProject contributor, Phill Hopkins.
We hope that you enjoy this daily offering and we would like to thank you for your support over not just the last 12 months, but also the last 10 years. With the support of artists and audiences alike we have managed to build what I believe to be a truly worthwhile project embedded here at the heart of South Leeds.
Bruce Davies
Artist. Writer. Curator of BasementArtsProject
Introduction by Phill Hopkins
The photographs I make are like aide-mémoires. I use my camera, which is always with me, to record the journey of the day that I am in. Sometimes my photographs assist me to make a drawing or painting. Often they are enough though, not having to be taken anywhere, self sufficient and able to stand up for themselves. They are not made or exist to prefigure anything.
I have continued to prefer to be in the landscape; it is within easy reach of my home and studio. The landscape has a code of its own and is indeed one in itself. The notion of code relates well to the mark making in my drawings and paintings where I translate my seen and felt world into a series of tics, twitches, dots, nods and shakes. This I see as coding, language, dialogue in and with itself. These marks have an erratic energy, they hum in response and in unison to one another, working within the safe confines of the planes perimeter.
I enjoy the repetitive clicking of my cameras shutter, of lining things up, of having to balance. When looking through the camera I see a suggestion of a simple and easy order.
I notice the quickness of the shutters action capturing the unimaginable antiquity of the landscape before me. The moment of a photograph’s making is often an exceptional one.
Day One
1 January 2021 - Susie, North Landing Flamborough Head.
One of my all time favourite things is the television series ‘Dad’s Army’; I can watch episodes over and over. Then there’s the two films. The reason I mention it here is because some of the scenes in the recent ‘Dad’s Army’ film were shot at Flamborough Head, on the very beach where I took this photograph. Its white cliffs were a stand-in for those of Dover. For a long time now we have marked News Year’s day with a trip to the sea. It’s a kind of grounding in anticipation of the forthcoming year ahead. Lots of the chalky pebbles, that come in different sizes, have purposeful playful holes in them. Maybe these telescope-like objects could actually foretell the year ahead…
Day Two
6 January 2021 - Paul’s Pond, Leeds.
When water is frozen there’s an urge to break its icy surface. I remember the ice on Paul’s Pond, near to where I live, was particularly thick last winter. I loved the array of sticks and stones that had been thrown at the ice, hoping to break it, only to skid pathetically across the surface. Perhaps, like Morse code, the dots and dashes of these objects could retell the story of their throwers…
Day Three
2 February 2021 - Susie, Cookridge Hall Golf Course, Leeds.
Where I live is the highest part of Leeds. When it snows the landscape around really could be any where in the world. If I had told you that this photograph was taken in Norway, you might have believed me. During the various lockdowns the golf course, along the street from me, was invaded by walkers, even in deep snow. The ground staff even tried to guide the rambles from the fairways and precious greens by quickly erecting fences.
Day Four
8 February 2021 - Beckett Street Cemetery, Leeds
During the various restrictions that we’ve experienced during the last year I didn't venture far from home. After making my appointment to receive my first Covid jab I went into town. In my nervousness as to whether I’d receive a microchip courtesy of Bill Gates, I arrived much too early. So I visited a cemetery across the road from the hospital.
Day Five
3 March 2021 - Walking Towards St. John the Baptist Church, Adel, Leeds.
I find the solitude of a single tree comforting. I like the solidness of its stance. This tree reminded me of the leaf tree paintings of Rene Magritte. He gave them titles such as ‘The Giant, ‘The Search for the Absolute’ and ‘Forest of Paimpont’.
Day Six
15 March 2021 - Horse, Yeadon, Leeds
I’ve always be drawn to horses. As a boy I rode them during the summer holidays, less gymkhana more wild west. I like the oily scent left on my hand after stroking them. When I’m next to one it’s as if they are kin.
Day Seven
11 April 2021 - Otley, Leeds
Via Instagram I follow a number of Aboriginal owned art centres in Australia. Often when a work is finished the artist will take it outside into the landscape to be photographed. I find this participatory act of joining in with creation very powerful. I took the drawing pictured in this photograph, of a figure walking along a path in Otley, back to where I had made the original photograph. Since I’d made the drawing it had snowed. There was something very poignant in the action of placing a somewhat delicate drawing on paper onto wet snowy ground.
Day Eight
18 April 2021 - Barmston, East Riding of Yorkshire
On a very recent visit to my parents house in south Bristol, in which they’ve lived since the late 1950s, I again saw the path in the back garden. I had helped my father build it using planks of timber for shuttering and hand mixing concrete for the path itself. I learned how to make a mix of sand and cement that was suitable for a long lasting structure. At the end of the path we had sited a post to hold the washing line. This image of a long rectangle, narrowing towards the end with a vertical line is lodged in my visual memory. So when I saw this jetty in Barmston running out to sea I immediately thought of that path from the 1960s that I had a hand in.
Day Nine
8 May 2021 - Stainburn Forest, Otley, Leeds
A long time ago, probably in my mid teens, I saw paintings of trees by Edvard Munch. I’ve always liked them and find them, as then, deeply mysterious. When I passed this particular group of trees I couldn't help but to recall Munch. There’s a simple connection with yesterday’s photograph. Seeing the trees makes me want to paint a picture of them.
Day Ten
29 May 2022 - Alongside the River Washburn, Otley, Leeds
The photographs I make of people are usually only for family albums. I find them much too complicated and often hard to control; I am drawn to simpler things. This photograph, however, is an exception. In are Gillian with Solomon the dog, Susie and my very good friend Chris. Chris is extremely deft in the identification of wild flowers; I’m jealous of his ability. In this photograph his hand is bang in the middle of the composition; this isn’t an accident as I always know when looking through the lens where the middle is. His outstretched finger is inches away from a yellow flower that he had identified for us. All of the attention and tension within the photograph is focused on that single hand movement and the small flower head.
Day Eleven
6 June 2021 - Wells-Next-The-Sea Beach, Norfolk
I haven’t been drawn to crowded places lately. It took a while to walk to this beach along quiet narrow paths, atop various dykes. On reaching the beach we realised where all the people were. I found this roped-off area interesting. It had all the small pebbles and seashells still in place; else where they had been covered up or moved. I liked how a single thin rope was enough to stop people from entering this particular part of the beach. I found a small sign that told me that it was roped off as there were basking seals near-by, some with young, who were not to be disturbed.
Day Twelve
28 June 2021 - Tate Modern, London
In June I went to London for the first time in over a year; before the pandemic I had usually visited around every six to eight weeks. I have always liked to visit the Tate Gallery, ever since I was a student at Goldsmiths, when I would head north walking over Vauxhall Bridge to visit what is now Tate Britain (in those days this was the only Tate). When I visited London in late June the whole city was very quiet because of travel restrictions. Tate Modern was quiet too. Apart from a few teenagers taking photographs of each other posed in what looked like routines for Instagram or TikTok, I had the building to myself. I thought of Will Smith in I Am Legend. I spent a long time in The Tanks; a kind of underground bunker looking space. In one of the larger rooms there was Joseph Beuys’ ‘The End of the Twentieth Century’ a monumental installation made in 1983. It reminded me of photographs I had taken during the winter of snow-covered boulders in Adel Woods, back in Leeds. Beuys’ work can be difficult to understand, but once I stopped thinking with my head and felt with my stomach I got it (I think). The piece brought to mind Franz Schubert’s music, in particular his simple lieder which I love and is never far from my hearing.
Day Thirteen
4 July 2021 - Near Netherby, North Yorkshire
One of my favourite walks is what has come to be called the “turnip” walk. During the lockdowns of the last two years we added to our collection of OS maps to increase our options for local walks. When we first walked it we passed a huge filed of turnips. Some of the turnips even found their way into my bag! The crop of turnips, that were eaten by sheep, was eventually superseded by one of wheat. Along the edges of the field were all manner of delightful wildflowers. I particularly like the common cow parsley, also known as Queen Anne's lace, mother die, fairy lace, lady's lace or hedge parsley. (I like the common names of plants, such as stinky Willie or sticky Willie, for obvious reasons) On this particular day the clouds seemed to be mimicking the flowers below, a kind of riding in tandem.
Day Fourteen
27 July 2021 - St Cuthbert’s Island, Northumberland
There are lovely stories about St Cuthbert being so fed-up with the other community members on Holy Island, that he would often take himself off to a smaller Island to get some peace; hence the islands name. On this day we had got out to the island by walking across the wet sand, guided by the tall poles sited in the sand. We had be given different advice as what to wear on our feet; one person suggested wellington’s and another bare feet. We chose Wellington’s and it was a good choice. Whilst we walked we saw other “pilgrims’ wearing fancy walking boots. We watched them struggling in long pools of water, only to have to remove their boots, tie the laces together and dangle them around their necks.
Day Fifteen
22 August 2021 - Covehithe Beach, Suffolk.
When we watch TV dramas the death of a character is often dramatic. When someone throws themselves from a tall building in these kinds of programmes, they often end up in a very balletic pose on the ground. When I was in Northumberland during the summer I noticed a lot of dead seabirds washed up on the beach. In Suffolk I noticed this too.
Day Sixteen
22 August 2021 - Near Covehithe Church, Suffolk
When I was at primary school, on being asked what we wanted to do when we grew up, I announced that I’d like to be a pig farmer. When I was about ten years old I worked on Mr Mannings farm. When I say work, I mean hard manual work. We started early in the morning and I carried a sharp-bladed orange pen knife. I remember loading up piglets for market. I would grab the tail with one hand and an ear with the other. The piglets would let-out an enormous scream.
Day Seventeen
6 September 2021 - Towards Golden Acre Park, Leeds
I was walking by myself on this day. I stopped for a while to look at this field. I wondered what the driver of the tractor had been thinking as the tracks left seemed to be more that the usual “tramlines’’. Paul Nash’s painting ‘Battle of Britain’ of 1941 came to mind and some photographs I had made at Scarborough of similar vapour trails. I often see Paul Nash when I’m out.
Day Eighteen
6 September 2021 - Adel Dam Nature Reserve, Leeds
I don’t like watching horror films, they scare me. Once I made a grave mistake, for some reason I watched the Blair Witch Project. I shouldn't have. I like coming across the remains of children’s play in woodland. They remind me of when I played as a boy, making dens, digging holes and fashioning weapons. In the back of mind was that film I had watched, so I quickly moved on.
Day Nineteen
26 October 2021 - Mablethorpe Beach, Lincolnshire
This is not really a good photograph. It’s technically all over the shop and out of focus. But I like it and I don’t care. I took it late at night. My camera, when I put it on a certain setting, does all sorts of things; a bit like wizardry. When walking along the beach I saw a dark shape ahead of me. Broadchurch came to mind. I thought it might be a big seal or if I was lucky, a stranded whale. As I approached it very cautiously (see yesterday's Advent photograph) I discovered it was a sandcastle.
Day Twenty
27 October 2021 - Mablethorpe Beach, Lincolnshire
I like looking out to sea. Some times I like to go waist deep in the water to make photographs, but I worry about stumbling and dropping my camera. I like watching wind turbines and wondering how much electricity they generate. I wonder why I only seem to see them off the Lincolnshire coast or further north and never off the Suffolk coast. Perhaps when all the levelling up is done, every view will have them.
About
Phill Hopkins was born in Bristol in 1961 and has been an artist based in Leeds since graduating from Goldsmiths College, London in 1985. His practise is very cross-disciplinary and includes the use of drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture and installation.
He exhibits both nationally and internationally, with recent shows at BasementArtsProject, Leeds; Pangolin Gallery, London; 3rd on 3rd Gallery, New York USA; Galerie Youn, Canada and Cross Gallery, Australia. His work resides in various public and private collections including The Imperial War Museum, London, Nanjing Baijia Lake International Culture Investment Group, China, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Leeds Art Gallery, Doncaster Museums & Art Gallery, Stadt Dortmund, Germany, The Hungarian Museum of Photography, Kecskemet, Hungary.
WEBSITE: www.phill-hopkins.co.uk