Kathy Butterly on Howard Hodgkin

Howard Hodgkin, Venice Rain, 1984-1987, Oil on wood, 23 x 23 inches  

A few years back I was walking over to the East River in NYC and noticed translucent, almost neon green, newly formed leaves vibrating in the bluest of skies — and I felt a surge of joy.  The work of Howard Hodgkin came to mind.  I first became aware of him in 1998 when I saw an exhibition of his paintings at Gagosian Gallery.  His work pops into my mind every now and then, usually when I am experiencing the splendor of color in a specific site. His abstract paintings record experiential feelings from places he traveled to, such as India and Italy. 

I recently spent time in India myself. There were many impressionable moments but what I carry with me most strongly was the powerful light moving through the stained-glass windows at the Mehrangarh Fort above the city of Jodphur.  The colors entered the space and created shapes all over the walls and floors . Another strong memory came from walking through the carved stone caves of Ellora and Ajanta and noticing clusters of crystals that naturally formed within the rocks; how I love these tiny surprises and how awesome the contrast was between the dark carved walls and these sparkling treasures.  

Mehrangarh Fort, Photo by Kathy Butterly

I feel an affinity towards Howard Hodgkins’ art and his process that has strengthened now that I’ve experienced the places that influenced him. His work is about memory and feeling, finding form through experience, real and pictorial; they are paintings yet also objects. They hold real physical as well as emotional tension.  These are qualities that I am trying to find within my own work.

I’m most fond of Hodgkin’s smaller scaled works such as “Venice Rain,” “Moss,” and “Visitors.” I can feel their monumentality, their clarity, their muddiness.  I’m drawn to them because they are intimate yet expansive. I love his inclusion of the frame within many of his paintings — it creates a physical tension and expansion through contraction.  The brush strokes seem to go on forever and the frame, though painted over and ‘hidden,” is a felt and real physical boundary, a reality of space.

In my eyes, intimacy is infinite, grand, universal, yet underestimated and undervalued; it’s something that everyone experiences but rarely is it championed.  When I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey, I spent a lot of time wandering and wondering throughout my back yard.  A natural fence of wild plants led to my favorite spot: a tiny fort my dad built for me. Around my fort grew raspberry and blackberry bushes along with lily of the valley flowers. I spent a lot of time laying on my belly smelling the intense fragrance coming from these tiny glittery bell-shaped blossoms. My eyes would see tiny ants walking in line carrying bits of food. I saw bees covered in pollen traveling from berry flower to berry flower.  I saw how mighty and important the intimate was to the world I lived in. I’d lay on the grass at night and wonder about the stars and planets that were out of my reach. I am pretty sure this is where my fascination for scale and tangibility was formed. 

Howard Hodgkin, Visitors, 2002, Oil on wood, 24 1/2” x 27 1/4”    

Dualities, contrasts, contradictions, expansion, contraction, color, translucency, opaqueness, gesture, massiveness, exquisiteness, detail, dismissal, perfection, exhaustion, energy, intimacy — they are all qualities in nature as well as in art, when art is active and activating. Howard Hodgkin’s paintings pull me in like nature does, like those moments in my backyard did.  There is a push/pull. They are intimate yet infinite. His work condenses and expands space. I’m drawn to works that keep me looking and wondering, that focus my attention so fully that I become unaware of the natural space that my body is in — works that are portals for a wandering mind.  

Hodgkin’s colors are bold, bright, dirty, glowing, acidic, simple, complicated.  His handling of paint is felt. The brush strokes feel alive and of that particular moment, the one that right then captures his thought. I love the way he handles colors. Sometimes they are so loud you can’t imagine that they are inspired by nature. But take a deep look at the colors around you; a tulip with sunlight hitting it just right glows with saturated hue. It is fiery, shimmery, full of life and almost too psychedelic to be real. A spring leaf fallen into a puddle of mud contrasts tender green with the muck of brown. These qualities of color exist in our real world and we can see them clearly if we take a moment to really look. Hodgkin captures these real-life colors and fleeting moments in a physically small and permanent rectangle.

Kathy Butterly, Comet, 2024, Porcelain, earthenware, glaze, 8 1/2 x 6 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches

Kathy Butterly was born in Amityville, NY. She received a BFA from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia and a MFA from University of California, Davis. She lives and works in NYC and Maine. Her work is represented by James Cohan, NYC.