Readers’ Showcase: Rodger Kingston

Hopper has certainly had a profound effect on many contemporary, or near-contemporary, artists – a range of artists with very different conceptual imperatives, but most of whom finding something compelling in Hopper’s visual language. Whereas the likes of David Lynch (cinema) and Gregory Crewdson (photography) seem most influenced by Hopper’s disquiet or hauntingly isolated vignettes – their work in different ways a sort of burlesque of the banal Americana and related psychological undercurrents, Kingston’s relationship to Hopper seems most keenly focused upon formal approach. What presents – investigating many of his images, both in his work (book) directly referencing Hopper, as well as earlier work – is Hopper’s visual methodology (that distinctive use of light, color, and contrast) as a formative tool in developing a separate but indebted means of perception and image making.