When we spotted this artist’s friendly, fresh, whimsical and vaguely nostalgic paintings of children, we jumped on them and had to find out more about this artist.Shelley Hopkins is a full-time artist who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee with her husband and, not surprisingly, four children.Through her work she explores themes of life’s circumstances and the beauty or pain therein, predominantly in oil on canvas with forays into murals and found objects.She started her career as a muralist in Starkville, Mississippi and her murals can be found in private residences, corporate offices, and churches in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee.She returned to Memphis in 2002 and attended Memphis College of Art.Memphis’ rich heritage and diverse culture sitting in conjunction with modern suburban life provide the perfect backdrop for her painting.
Hopkins’ paintings have found homes in private and corporate collections throughout the South.Recently she painted the Christmas card for Ryan’s Hope, a nonprofit organization raising funds to support disabled children.Her work has also been featured in a recent series of Spectacular Homes of Tennessee, a showcase of top interior designers and decorators in the region.She was the first prize winner of the prestigious MGAL (Memphis Germantown Artists’ League) show in the fall of 2006. In the artist’s words: “My latest series of paintings are glimpses of memory, family, and circumstance.The work is mainly oil on canvas, worked and reworked, primarily with a knife.The figures are ambiguous and faded like memory and sometimes blend with structure and space.The works are typically descriptions and interpretations based on a photograph or actual event and the memory coinciding.Each story expresses the emotion and adventure of youth.The figures float on the canvas in dreamlike innocence.Tension exists between the figures simple form and the background hinting at the end of innocence and the path to adulthood.”
It always warms us when an artist wants to keep his or her work affordable, so that “young collectors” and people who love art, but don’t necessarily have the means to buy original art, can buy it.So with this artist’s permission, and even encouragement, we are offering her paintings at “an entry level” price point, hoping that they will reach out to buyers for whom original art might not always be within reach.
Shelley Hopkins' husband Paul is an accomplished poet who has written several poems to accompany Shelley's paintings. To read the poems, please click here.
