Julian Hooper employs a reductive set of lines, shapes and monochrome surfaces to construct images imbued with a visual complexity of another kind.  Each work is an inventive combination of forms and ideas gathered from a variety of sources including language, lettering, graphic design, abstraction, portraiture, and symbolism. With illusionsitic wooden frames and imagery that references conventions of portraiture and abstraction, Hooper makes objects that effect a kind of parody of painting, while also revealing a close connection to subject matter and communicating a range of experiences and conditions.

Julian Hooper lives and works in Auckland. He has held over 20 solo exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland and New York. In 2016 he featured in Necessary Distraction, a survey of contemporary New Zealand painting at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. Hooper is represented in the Queensland Art Gallery collection as well as major collections throughout New Zealand including the Chartwell and Wallace collections, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the University of Auckland collection.

i! is Hooper’s sixth exhibition at Gallery 9.