Hope is a brilliantly accomplished impressionistic portrayer of street scenes...

(John Walsh, The Independent)

Following the success of his debut solo show (Observations, 2015), award-winning painter Benjamin Hope has teamed up with sculptor Ben Hooper, for a major new exhibition called Works. Over 50 new paintings of London by Hope will be set against Hooper’s bronze and wire sculptures in a striking juxtaposition of different media and techniques.

Almost all of Benjamin Hope’s pieces were painted on location in areas of the Capital such as the City, the Thames, Chelsea, Blackheath, Camberwell, Putney and Westminster. Signaling a new strand to his work, Benjamin will also present much larger studio paintings that were developed from plein air studies. According to Benjamin “painting from life is my modus operandi; I love the immediacy, the time pressure, and the liveliness of the result. Creating paintings in the studio is different. It allows greater scale but it’s not just a straightforward enlargement; it’s more like an exploration of how a complex layering of paint can help evoke the light and atmosphere of the moments I originally captured painting outdoors.”

Ben Hooper’s work focuses on the human form: seen from life, and through the lens of sculptural traditions of the past. Ben’s pieces will include his bronze nudes, a selection of his commissioned portraits and recent works in wire that respond to classical sculptures from both the west and the east. Ben explains “my wire works are drawings in three-dimensional space. Hidden within them is the potential for a multiplicity of two-dimensional images that are revealed when these sculptures cast shadows onto nearby surfaces.”

Benjamin Hope grew up in Oxford and read Mathematics and Physics at the University of Warwick before moving to Cambridge for his PhD. His long-term plan throughout was to become a painter and his artistic training happened concurrently through experimentation, practice and reading. He has been a full time artist—living and working in London—since 2011. He has won several awards including runner-up in the prestigious Lynn Painter Stainers Prize and rst prize in Pintar Rapido, London. He has had work selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and multiple open exhibitions including those of the New English Art Club, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

Ben Hooper grew up in London and read Physics and Philosophy at Oxford before working as a barrister for 15 years in London. His sculptural practice initially developed alongside his legal career, with stints of training at the City & Guilds School of Art and the Royal Drawing School. He currently works mostly by commission.