Spring Catalogue Exhibition 2009
Nicky Hoberman
Along Came a Spider, 2005
oil on canvas, 1829 x 2439 mm
signed and dated verso: Hoberman, 2005
exhibited: Nicky Hoberman, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, 26 August - 12 September 2008
Nicky Hoberman's paintings remind us of the wonders and absurdities of childish imagination and play. Along Came a Spider (2005), as with other paintings from her mid-nineties Girls series, takes its title from a children's nursery rhyme and explores nuances of innocence and awareness. Nicky Hoberman's style is distinguished by contrasting sfumato and impasto paint-handling; combining an air-brush realism with expressionist gesture.
Despite their age, the subjects in Along Came a Spider are self-possessed and appear to look straight through us, staring out from the canvas with an all-knowing and ironic gaze. One protagonist is depicted performing gymnastics, seemingly oblivious to another child that occupies the same space; while another appears unfazed by a playful cat at her feet and a leaping mouse. Though sharing the same canvas and literal landscape, they inhabit vastly different emotional spaces. The uncanny mix of assertiveness and naivety of her characters suggest concepts of displacement, isolation, and identity in an uncertain landscape.
Born in South Africa, an early itinerant lifestyle influenced the development of Nicky Hoberman's aesthetic. Hoberman was schooled in South Africa, Oxford, Boston, New York and Paris, and completed her MA at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London.
Hoberman has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums worldwide including the exhibition The New Neurotic Realists (1999) at the Saatchi Gallery in London. AJ
