The Contemporary Art Society is pleased to announce the acquisition of Manchester (09/08/2011) by Ana Rosa Hopkins for the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston.
Ana Rosa Hopkins (b.1963) is an Argentinian-born British artist based in Manchester. Her work has been exhibited in the UK and internationally, in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Holland, Finland and Brazil, with work recently shown at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston (2015–16) and the 2015 British Glass Biennale in Stourbridge.
In recent years, Hopkins has specialised in the use of glass, mirror glass and lenses. Hoping to subvert the traditional and decorative uses of glass, she explores the physical qualities of the material and challenges the boundaries of its use. She works in the liminal region between sculpture and glassmaking to explore the possibility of creating multi-layered messages and metaphors through the use of material, drawing on her doctoral research on the legacy of Joseph Beuys and his ideas on social sculpture.
Manchester (09/08/2011), 2012, is part of a series of works titled Riot Glass, made from glass collected from the street following the riots in Manchester in August 2011. As a Lancashire museum, the Harris Museum & Art Gallery has a connection to the social conflict that the work concerns. The work addresses developments in contemporary glassware and notions of conceptual design over function, drawing an interesting comparison with the more traditional glassware collections. Her approach to glass blowing and experiments with refracted light and water in this piece link to the museum’s large scent bottle and glass collections.