Cathrin Hoffmann/Natalia Gonzalez Martin

Cathrin Hoffmann

Hoffmann’s figures, like something conjured up in a dystopian fever dream, are robotic, amorphous bodies, deconstructed into composite parts. Frequently using deep reds or various shades of fuchsia, Hoffmann’s colour palette is rich and bold as she strives to create depth and emotion through colour.

Hoffmann’s training as a graphic designer is visible in her cartoon-like figures. Contorted, twisted and often alone, Hoffmann’s creatures seem to be seeking out a connection. Stripped of identity these figures do not conform to any gender nor race, as Hoffmann endeavours to erase the limitations and stigmatisations the body has long been socially subjected to.

“I create a new body, with its weaknesses and idiosyncrasies, to examine what our present time with technology, digitization and hyper-capitalism has made us become”. - Hoffmann

“When I was growing up, I hardly got to know any women’s work because of the state of inequality at the time, but now if I was to list all of the female artist who influence me we would run out of words”, Hoffmann stated in an interview with This Is Tomorrow last year. Hoffmann sites the Surrealist Dorothea Tanning as a major influence. Indeed, said influence is most visible in Hoffmann’s painting entitled I Stick My Finger In Existence (2020), the contorted silhouette of the body echoing that of Tanning’s Nue Couchee (1969-70). In Tanning’s textile work, constructed using table tennis balls, wool and thread, the emphatic, rounded forms suggests a reclining female nude. The pink fabric sculpture only hints at such a subject, whilst Hoffmann’s iteration is more explicit in reference: giving her subject a face and eyes that seem to search frantically, the discomfort of the figure visible. Hoffmann adds hands to the end of the limbs and a face, as well as mimicking the exaggeratedly round forms and vertebrae visibly poking out the back.

Dorothea Tanning, Nue Couchee (1969-70). Source: tate.org.

Cathrin Hoffmann, I Stick My Finger In Existence (2020). Source: Cathrin Hoffmann.

Hoffmann too cites Louise Bourgeois as another major influence on her work. Indeed, Hoffmann’s salmon-coloured figures are reminiscent of Bourgeois’s own subversive, stitched figures, also a similar shade of pink. Like Hoffmann’s figures, Bourgeois’ too lack discernable features. In Arch of Hysteria (2000), subtle indications of facial features are achieved through the simple overlapping of fabrics, two lumps referencing breasts. Yet, beyond this, any further distinguishable features are absent.

Cathrin Hoffmann, Is This A Lot of Feelings, 2020. Source: Cathrin Hoffmann.

The same can be said of Hoffmann’s work entitled Is This A Lot of Feelings (2020): breasts hint that this figure is female, with a cartoon-like smiley face peering out at the viewer.

Fundamentally, Hoffmann desires to address us as human beings, tackling what it is we are and what we want to be, and how technology and digital progression interferes with this.

Natalia Gonzalez Martin

Another predominantly figurative artist, yet vastly different in style, which has been grabbing my attention as of late, is Natalia Gonzalez Martin. Delicate, serene and poised, Martin’s figures are recognisably human – contrasting the figures populating Hoffman’s canvases. Often surrounded by or amongst nature, the figures within Martin’s paintings have a calming air about them as blue skies and luscious green turfs abound. Through the use of traditional techniques, Martin’s works adopt the form of icon paintings with an almost hyper-realistic quality.

Through her painting, Martin questions traditions and rituals passed down orally through generations, reflecting on an approach to life that has been accepted without comment or revision. Looking at the traditions, gestures and habits we have inherited, it is hard to ignore the inscription of religious and cultural heritage on one’s physical body and moral codes.

Natalia Gonzalez Martin, The Fig Tree You Cursed Has Withered (2021). Source: Natalia Gonzalez Martin.

Fruit is frequently depicted alongside flesh in Martin’s works: imagery taken directly from Renaissance painting, where fruit was an indispensable part of an incredibly rich visual language. Perishable and ephemeral, just like human flesh, fruit served to represent the transient nature of human existence. Images of fresh fruit were also deployed to reference fertility, vitality, youth and abundance. The latter of such symbolic references is evident in Martin’s The Highest Fruit Is the Sweetest (2021).

Natalia Gonzalez Martin, The Highest Fruit Is the Sweetest, 2021. Source: Natalia Gonzalez Martin.

Overall, from the graphic, futuristic work of Hoffmann to the more traditional, delicate Gonzalez Martin, evident in both artists’ painting is the desire to reflect what it means to be human, to inhabit this earth, with flesh and blood. The more abstract manifestation of this takes form in Hoffmann’s cartoon-like figures, whilst Martin expresses such sentiments more conventionally, with a hyper-realistic beauty.

Olivia Wilson

Reviews Editor, MADE IN BED

All images courtesy of sources.