Xander Hoffman

Xander Hoffman (born 1993) based in Manchester, studied Painting and Printmaking at The Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 2019.

His work an exploration into screen based imagery through the medium of painting, working primarily in oil paint but occasionally using other materials such as retroreflective paints and pigments. He seeks to record impermanent, data based images through paint so as to give these weightless moments a physical presence.

Hoffman’s approach to painting has varied widely from impasto, pixel oriented works that seek to give a weightless image tangibility to the point of tactility, to more traditional oil paintings focussed on the subtle quirks of interaction with a screen, concerned with creating a physical memory for a data based image through the action of painting.

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I see my work as an exploration into screen-oriented and data based imagery, I am creating physical records for intangible moments experienced through technology- I believe it is entirely possible, and perhaps likely, that paintings may outlast digital media. These moments vary from interactions with computer programmes or devices, to observed
moments in film.

A form of “digital nostalgia” is present throughout my work, technology provides a timeline of human advancement. Moiré routes my work in the current period of digital displays and cameras. I find the moiré pattern its self to be like a conversation between two machines, in my paintings I try to transcribe this interaction, as though I am attempting to decipher a
foreign language.

The transient nature of light-based imagery is of particular interest to me; both in terms of constant technological advancement, and the fluid nature of light as a medium. I intend to give these impermanent images a physicality, so that they no longer of the screen. I believe a fleeting digital moment inherits a physical ‘past’ through the action of painting, evolving as it is painted. I choose to illustrate the weightlessness of digital imagery by painting on thin sheets of aluminium or steel, attached to concealed mounts, as though the pieces are floating jpeg files.