Angela Canada Hopkins Cancerous Art

Press

The Cancerous Art of Angela Canada Hopkins:

By Ian Crawford-McKinney in Illiterate Magazine, The Cancerous Art of Angela Canada Hopkins, http://illiteratemedia.com/blog/view/237 (Sept. 16, 2009).

After losing her father to cancer in her last year of art school, Colorado artist Angela Canada Hopkins discovered a method for expressing her grief in her most familiar medium: painting. After researching cancerous cells, she found a spring of bittersweet inspiration—both from the death of her father, and the beauty she found in the form of cancer cells.

Her portrayal of a fatal ailment on a microscopic level leads to colors and patterns not unlike those of abstract modern art; the beautiful irony spills out onto the canvas, creating enlarged galaxies of basic fatal structures.

http://reporterherald.com/news_story.asp?ID=25254

Publish Date: 10/13/2009

Reporter-Herald/Christopher Stark

Angela Canada Hopkins paints an ovarian cancer cell on Monday in her studio in downtown Loveland. Cancer became significant to her after her father died from the disease, so she began to research causes and prevention. Eventually she began painting the cells in a distinct abstract style. Her studio is on the route for the Loveland Art Studio Tour and Sale this weekend, which will include 40 artists at 27 locations around Loveland.

If You Go

What: The Loveland Art Studio Tour and Sale, which will showcase nearly 40 artists’ work throughout Loveland studios.

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Various art studios and locations throughout Loveland. For a map of locations, visit www.lovelandartstudiotour.com. Signs will also be posted en route to and in front of each studio.

Cost: Free.

Contact: Call 635-0649 or visitwww.lovelandartstudiotour.com.

Loveland Art Studio

Tour Saturday

By Sarah Bultema
Loveland Reporter-Herald

Community members will have the opportunity to view hundreds of pieces of art and meet the artists who created them this weekend when studios around Loveland open their doors to the public.

Now in its first year, the Loveland Art Studio Tour and Sale will showcase nearly 50 local artists in 27 locations around town.

Created by artist Billie Colson, the free event aims to introduce the public to artists and their creative processes — a part of the local art scene that people usually don’t find in galleries.

“(The artists’) work is presented in galleries, so the public never gets to meet them,” Colson said.

“(The tour) is a nice way for artists to engage about their process and for collectors to see how the process is done.”

During the tour, some artists will even be working on projects and giving demonstrations, she added.

Loveland artist Angela Canada Hopkins will open her North Cleveland Avenue studio during the event.

Although she hasn’t been involved with many studio tours before, the artist is excited to share (if not explain) her work.

“My art is bizarre compared to most around here,” she said.

However, with a little explanation, many community members will be able to relate to it.

Canada Hopkins lost her father to cancer, leading her to begin researching the disease.

Soon, she realized the microscopic cancer cells were actually quite beautiful. She began re-creating her own abstract versions of them in large, colorful acrylic paintings.

Many of these paintings will be on display and for sale during the tour.

“I want to educate people and broaden their horizons,” she said. “I want to open them up to new kinds of art.”

From photography to pottery, there will be plenty of art mediums to explore during the tour.

“We all have so many different styles,” Colson said. “There’s going to be something for everyone.”

And guests probably will be able to take home some of this work at an affordable price, she added, as many artists will be offering bargains on their work.

“Artists are so prolific, they need to keep creating, clear out their work and move on,” she said.

“I think (guests) will find some great deals buying directly from these artists.”

Loveland artist finds beauty, inspiration while working through father's cancer

BY STACY NICK • STACYNICK@COLORADOAN.COM • OCTOBER 15, 2009

Without any background, people may look at Angela Canada Hopkins' paintings and only see squiggly lines, bright colors and abstract themeBut tell them the painting is called "Cancer Cell #2" and it takes on a whole new meaning.

"I look at my art as a sort of artistic memorial to my father and his influence on me," said Hopkins of her Cancer Cell series.

For Hopkins, much of her work is based in expressing her grief after losing her father to cancer in 2001, during her last year of art school.

At the time, the family was living in Michigan and traveling back and forth to Chicago for her father's treatments. Hopkins used imagery from that time, such as nails, glass and stones, to portray her heartache as well as her fear of things to come.

While the art was initially more therapeutic, Hopkins said she felt it was some of her best work, "like that was really true to me.

"I wanted to find some way that was still referencing my dad," she added.

Oddly enough, Hopkins has found beauty and hope in the design elements of cancer.

While researching her father's illness, she came across microscopic images of cancer cells and found that, unlike the imagery associated with cancer, the actual cells themselves were quite beautiful.

"They're all under the skin, something we never see but it's still a part of nature," Hopkins said. "Whether good or bad, it's amazing, I think, what lies underneath."

Now Hopkins is sharing her work, and her studio, with others, as one of the more than 30 stops in Loveland's first Studio Art Tour.

Inside the painter's cozy Cleveland Street space, visitors can see Hopkins' Katz-like portraits, abstract takes on ocean life and her Cancer Cell series.

The tour will allow people a backstage look at where she creates her works, as well as the chance to find out more about her art and its inspiration.

Hopkins said she gets pretty mixed reactions to her work, in which she modifies microscopic cell images into her own vision. In Loveland there is more of a focus on realism - paintings of mountains and landscapes - so her work can be a bit more shocking to people, which is fine by her.

"I really like standing out and being different because I feel like I'm educating people and expanding their perspective on things," Hopkins said.

"I had a lady contact me who had cancer and ... she said everyone around her was like, 'Oh poor thing,' and she was looking for the positive side. She liked that the colors (in my work) were so bright and positive and didn't make the cancer look like such a scary, daunting thing."