Glimpses of Nature: Prints by Barbara Hocker

Homer Babbidge Library Stevens Gallery
Curator: David Kapp

Cemetery Tree

Barbara Hocker’s art is grounded in her study of Wabi Sabi aesthetics and Asian philosophies found in Buddhism and Taoism, and in her practice of yoga and meditation. It is nature-based, intimate, purposely unsettled and imperfect. There is a flow and play between reality, realism, and abstraction achieved using digital photography, monotype printmaking, and natural materials.

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic concept that grew out of Zen Buddhism and the Japanese Tea Ceremony. One of its philosophical tenets is that everything in the world is in the process of either evolving from nothingness into form or devolving from form back into nothingness and it is mostly impossible to tell, and unnecessary to know, which direction any particular thing is going. Each direction encompasses the other in its potentiality. Hope and Loss always dance together in every moment and everything is impermanent, imperfect, and in constant flux. Wabi Sabi values “suchness”--the particular--over the universal. It also emphasizes nature, intimate space, intuition, ambiguity, and serendipity.

“In my work,” Hocker says, “I usually begin with photography, where digital technology allows me to work very intuitively, capturing serendipitous, inspired images and to manipulate them until I find what feels right.” In this exhibit, photographs are printed as inkjet prints on various papers as well as silk and combined with abstract monotypes (one-of-a-kind prints pulled from wood, glass or acrylic plates), beeswax, and branches to create wall pieces and a sculpture that express the direct experience of nature, beauty, and life.

Barbara Hocker studied fibers and printmaking at Syracuse University and Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has exhibited extensively in the Boston and Hartford areas and lives and works in Coventry, CT.

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