Visaya Hoffie

Hoffie’s work is deeply personal while being simultaneously responsive to broader social, cultural and environmental concerns. For her, art is a visual language that builds resilience through irreverent humour, bootleg offshoots of brands, icons and ideals, and sly allusions to art history.

Her work reassesses art’s changing role amidst the visual bombardment delivered by technology, advertising, social media and the relentless 24/7 news cycle. She harvests images from the margins of these territories and recombines them to challenge the divisions between art, design, advertising and ideology.

In O aura, a church pew, re-upholstered in advertising imagery, faces a shrine. The central icon of a Spiderman painted in transparent washes, has been transformed into a more fragile version where the quiet persistence of the hand-made ascends against the advertising references to aspirational wealth and quick-fix religiosity behind it. Either side, Hoffie’s avatar characters stare back, seemingly challenging the viewer’s role in this space for contemplation. Hoffie offers poignantly humorous reflections on the capacity of art to ignite reimagined faith in the magical dimensions of life.