Barbara Hocker
Other media: Photography, Printmaking, Installation
B A Hocker
Arbor Art Center
Hartford, CT 06106
Email: barbarahocker (at) att (dot) net
Website: http://www.bahocker.30art.com
Artist Statement
My artistic practice is part of my overall spiritual path. In integration with yoga, meditation, and study (which includes readings in the history and philosophies of Buddhism, Taoism and Wabi Sabi aesthetics), my artwork is an outward, physical expression and communication of my inner, subjective experience. I practice the art of photography as a “Zen Art”, emphasizing the attempt to escape the rational mind and to capture shots from the place of “No Mind”. I want my work to be intimate, purposely unsettled and imperfect. I use alternative lens optics, unorthodox manipulation of the “auto” features of the digital camera, and digital post-capture processes to find unexpected results. In printing the images I pay careful attention to the material qualities of the paper, and often embed layers of images in layers of encaustic in order to embody the digital image in tactile physicality. I use association, resonance, sensuousness and metaphor to create poetic images.
Selected Works
|  Snow Blind IX - 2010 - Pigment Print, Encaustic - 12" x 16"  Snow Blind XII - 2010 - Pigment Print, Encaustic - 12" x 16"  Snow Blind XIII: Cell Tower - 2010 - Pigment Print, Encaustic - 12" x 16"  Snow Blind XIV: High Tension - 2010 - Pigment Print, Encaustic - 12" x 16"  Snow Blind XVI: Building - 2010 - Pigment Print, Encaustic - 12" x 16"  Snow Blind XV: High Tension - 2010 - Pigment Print, Encaustic - 12" x 16"  Snow Blind XVII: Building - 2010 - Pigment Print, Encaustic - 12" x 16"  travelogue (installation view 2) - 2009 - Digital Photographs and Encaustic on Panel - Variable  travelogue (installation view) - 2009 - digital photographs and encaustic on panel - variable  travelogue II - 2009 - digital photography and encaustic - 12" x 16"  travelogue XI - 2009 - Digital Photographs and Encaustic on Panel - 12" x 16"  travelogue XII - 2009 - digital photographs and encaustic - 12" x 16"  travelogue XIII - 2009 - Digital Photographs and Encaustic on Panel - 12" x 16"  travelogue XVI - 2009 - Digital Photographs and Encaustic on Panel - 12" x 16"  Turner's Woods III - 2010 - Digital Photographs and Encaustic on Plexigals, Wood - 26" x 34" x 1"  Turner's Woods IV - 2010 - Digital Photographs and Encaustic on Plexigals, Wood - 26" x 35" x 1"  Turner's Woods V - 2010 - Digital Photographs and Encaustic on Plexigals, Wood - 26" x 30" x 1"  Untitled (blue line) - 2009 - digital photography and encaustic - 24" x 36"  Untitled (blue line) - 2009 - digital photography and encaustic - 24" x 36" |
Artist Bio
Solo Exhibitions:
2011 Scheduled for July - Sept, 100 Pearl St. Gallery, Hartford, CT
2010 Glimpse, Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, MA
2007 Glimpses of Nature, Stevens Gallery, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
2006 The Night for the Day, EBK Gallery, West Hartford, CT
2005 Elegy, John Bryan Gallery, Farmington, CT
2001 Tree : Line : Pattern, John Bryan Gallery, Farmington, CT
2000 My Lost Dreams, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
1999 The Bloom upon my Misery, Artworks Gallery, Hartford, CT
1998 There's Only Trouble and Desire, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
1997 There's Only Trouble & Desire, Butterworth Gallery, Hartford College for Women
1995 Embodied Verse, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
1994 New Sculpture, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
1989 Textural Semantics, Partition 942 Gallery, Hartford, CT
Projects:
2010 River Canyon, (Site Specific Installation) New Haven City Wide Open Studios Alternative Space
2009 Made Space Window Installation, 866 Chapel St., New Haven, CT
2006 Shadow Room, (Site Specific Installation) New Haven City Wide Open Studios Alternative Space
2002 Continuum, (Site Specific Installation) Artworks Gallery, Hartford, CT
2004-2005 Traveling Exhibition Art From Connecticut Forests, (Charter Oak Cultural Center Gallery, Hartford; Lyman Allyn Museum, New London; Kellogg Environmental Center Gallery, Derby; Greenwich Audubon Society Gallery, Greenwich; The Silo Gallery, New Milford)
Selected Group Exhibitions:
Artspace Gallery, New Haven, CT
Gallery 195, New Haven, CT
Connecticut Commission on Culture Gallery, Hartford, CT
Central Connecticut State University Art Gallery, New Britain, CT
Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT
Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
Artworks Gallery, Hartford, CT
Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT
John Slade Ely House, New Haven, CT
Firehouse Center for the Arts, Newburyport, MA
Saltbox Gallery, West. Hartford, CT
Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
Wood Memorial Library, S. Windsor, CT
S. Windsor Library, S. Windsor, CT
NESAD Suffolk University, Boston, MA
The Promenade Gallery, The Bushnell, Hartford, CT
The Pond House Gallery, Hartford, CT
Education:
Graduate Studies, Cranbrook Academy of Art
BFA, Syracuse University
Awards & Publications
2010 Finalist, Public Art Project, Tunxis Community College, CCCT
2008 Greater Hartford Arts Council New Boston Fund Individual Artist Fellowship
April 2009 Studio Visit Journal volume 5, page 75
Sept 27, 2007 Teresa Karmel “Far and Near” the Chronicle
first aired in April 2005 guest on “Artists and Authors” interviewed by Erica Pagliuco CTV14
July 2004 Lisa Brisson “From one giant oak, many visions are born” Connecticut Life
Oct 1999 A.bacus Issue #125 “Pattern Poems” Potes & Poets Press
Sept 9, 1999 Mark Valentine “Kingston's artists dressed to the nines” South End News
Apr/May 1999 Steven Starger “Barbara Hocker” Art New England
Jan 8, 1999 Steven Starger “Exhibit result of artist's shattered peace” Journal Inquirer
Jan 15, 1999 Matt Damsker “A Meditative Response to Road-building Disruption” The Hartford Courant
June 12, 1997 Patricia Rosoff “Grit and Grace” The Hartford Advocate
Oct/Nov 1995 Miles Unger “Barbara Hocker: Embodied Verse” Art New England
April/May 1995 Michael Rush “Surrealist Affinities” Art New England
1994 Raymond Smith “Surrealist Affinities” Catalogue The John Slade Ely House