Probably Not What He Was Going For . . .

Last Thursday, we made the wonderfully confusing journey into Minneapolis and the Midway Contemporary Art gallery. While at the gallery, our assignment was to find a piece that was on display that sparked our interest and to analyze it here, on our blogs.
As I'm sure you've noticed already, I am horrible at analyzing artwork. However, as this is being graded, I will keep trying!

So, the piece I chose was Jeff Elrod's Hopps. It is a 36x24 inch acrylic painting on canvas made in 2001.

According to the packet that was given out by Midway, it belonged to the Remes' private collection before being featured in the gallery. But that's not really important. What is important, however, is that this piece gave me very little insight to the life of Mr. Elrod. Looking at Hopps, I'm going to say that he is an abstract painter. The image looks computer generated, though it is very clearly done in acrylic paint. Judging by the fact that there is no obvious subject, Elrod could have made it so that the viewer would then be forced to find their own subject in the piece, as well as their own subject matter. What is this piece about? What is it saying?
. . . . .
To be perfectly honest, my first reaction to this, and many other abstract art pieces, was that my four-year-old cousin could have made this, what a waste of canvas. Even so, it was the piece that piqued my intrest the most. Upon coming home and doing some research, like any good art analyzer should do, I found that Elrod has done a lot of these abstract works that look like they're computer generated. When looking even farther into his work and at the process by which he creates it, I found that this was much, much more complicated than it originally appears to be. Elrod uses a time consuming process of outlinging the shapes he wants in his composition in tape of varying widths and sizes - definitely not something my four-year-old cousin could do.
So I had found some information about the artist, but I had nothing concerning the title. While Googling Elrod, a Walter Hopps popped up - he was a curator. Perhaps Elrod admired Hopps? I couldn't find anything to back that theory up.

Now, rewinding.

Back in the gallery, before I did any sort of research, I stood staring at this abstract, supposed waste-of-canvas piece of 'art'. I was trying to figure out what in the world this thing was about. And then I learned about the title, and honestly, I giggled a bit. Hopps, in my mind, did not bring forth the image of the curator who popped up on Google, but rather a tiny tidbit of information I had learned a couple of years ago.
Now, I am no beer drinker, but I do know that beer is made with hops, and, of course, that was what my mind immediately focused on. Then it just took off running with that idea. Perhaps this painting is really of some poor guy who drank too much at his buddy's party the night before? His whole night had been a blur. Just a bunch of squiggles like the ones at the top of the canvas. He passed out on the couch after a long night of partying and drinking and his mind and the thoughts in it were all just alcohol-induced squiggles and this was a portrait of him and his after-party, pre-hangover condition.
Poor guy.

Once my mind had gone that far, it was impossible to look at the piece in any other manner, even after research and finding Walter Hopps on Google.
My mind works in very strange ways.

EDIT :: Abstract art, in my mind, is art that has no strictly expressed form. For instance, a painting that features a woman sitting on a chair has a clearly defined form. The woman and the chair are both forms. Abstract art, however, is about line and color and how the two interact, much like Hopps, which is why I call it abstract art. The lines and the color don't make up a clearly expressed form, but rather leave it to the viewer to try to find one in the piece.