Indiana Hoover

Imagined Studies

Thomas VanDyke Gallery is pleased to present Imagined Studies, a collection of new paintings by Indiana Hoover. The works in this series follow Hoover’s tradition of collecting from his inner motivations to find inspiration, using his mind’s eye to infer forms. He breaks things down with his imagination and puts them back together with his brush. These are real people, not because they have been brought to life by the artist’s will, but rather because they have been channeled by his curiosity. Like a song that has always existed, even before it was written, a collection of sounds in nature, Hoover’s paintings have been arranged and composed from what he sees in the world. His portraits may look familiar to you because they are the people all around us. The person ahead of you in line at the grocery store, the woman on stage in the video you saw, the man asleep on the subway after a long day at work, maybe even the stranger you thought you saw in the mirror. Hoover’s paintings bring comfort through his unique blend of approximation and precision. His work has layers like an ongoing story, nuance like a dream you can almost remember, and flavors both comforting and exotic. 

Indiana Hoover lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. 

As an artist, I am interested in work that shows us something we recognize about ourselves—something unliteral, figurative, and essential. We are not our drawings, but we are. And though our drawings may not always look like us, we see ourselves in them: an extension, an impression, an impersonation. 

My favorite art boils itself down. How do we communicate the most about our experiences with the least 

information? How do we use broken, simplified forms to convey complex emotion? How does gesture, line, mark, and symbol express more about our feelings than we might otherwise convey out loud? 

Life is ordinary, fleeting, and short, and sometimes I’m afraid of time—scared of wasting. The hourglass and clock, recurring symbols in my work, are reminders of that fear. Perhaps this is why I work quickly. 

At this moment in my practice, I’m beginning to work larger, and much of my production feels iterative and in series. Retread or retried. I’m looking for something specific in the mark-making—a consequence of trial and chance.