A landscape blooms out in the dark, or maybe a pattern of thought unfolding. There’s something there, and the longer you look at it, it becomes something else. Hoffman’s work reads like this – one thing at the start, another as you read further – rhizomatic, a little daringly unsure, and yet forthright and honest. An undeniable offer to begin.
This is where Teetering found its feet; a discussion with Hoffman led to a full look into piles of canvases stacked in a bedroom. Hoffman is prolific, working constantly, leaving paintings to dry on his patio and on any available surface. With painting, you can tell he comes to rest. The viewer can follow his mind as it wanders from place, to person, to experience, to self. As this exploration oscillates between external and internal, Hoffman offers it as a gift to the viewer rather than a burden. He invites us to inhabit this tension, to honor it, and to find a resting place within it. The result is a hold somewhere between the viewer and the image, the canvas and the place beyond – a balancing point, a delicate spin – a teetering.
Teetering is a self-presented collection of new works by Asher Hoffman, with curation by Andrew K. Shepherd and presented in collaboration with Denver Digerati at the Evans School in the Golden Triangle of Denver, CO.
Asher Hoffman, a Jerusalem-born artist now based in Denver, seamlessly integrates over seven years of mindfulness practice into his artistic process. For him, creating art is a profound meditation, a spiritual journey. Immersed in nature, Hoffman's work is deeply rooted in spirituality, introspection, and personal identity. He translates emotions and experiences into abstract forms and scenes inspired by joy, loss, landscapes, and music. Hoffman's intuitive approach to art echoes the pioneering spirits of abstract art.
Andrew K. Shepherd was born in Las Vegas, NV in 1999. He received a BFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA in May 2021. Maturing alongside the internet, in the suburbs of Las Vegas, and in an America defined by class inequity, Shepherd makes artwork about the process of remembering. First collecting images, commodities, and cultural artifacts, then utilizing intuition and abstraction to synthesize them into paintings and objects, Shepherd is recording his experience of the world. Andrew now lives and works in Denver, CO, working as a Studio Associate with NINE dot ARTS and as a painter in his studio.
