Hipkiss
*1964
avril, 1992, mixed media on paper, 46 x 35 cm
Gegefou 1, 2010, mixed media on paper, 60 x 120 cm
Die Welle komm, undated, mixed media, 21 x 15 cm
Since the early 1980s, Chris and Alpha Mason - collectively known as Hipkiss - have worked on an uncompromising visual iconography, which has a hypnotic if not visionary impact. After leaving their home country of England in the year 2000, they settled after the events in New York of September 11, 2001 in a French province. The productive Hipkiss oeuvre has become the result of a symbiotic and interactive cooperation of two individuals, two accomplices united in a creative process characterized both thematically and formally by their relationship and which has further developed through a continuous exchange of ideas and techniques. The monumental Hipkiss panoramas, which depict a postindustrial, feminist parallel world that is often populated by mutant androgynous warriors are executed with extraordinary precision and formal mastery in a style that is both anarchistic and detailed in resolution. The subliminal threat in Hipkiss’ technoid landscapes is counterbalanced by utopian counter-drafts of an uncanny beauty. In this sense, Hipkiss’ oeuvre reveals the inherent creative processes elucidating a fact that is sometimes misread: that the artist duo’s drawings are not the result of a solitary reverie but rather an imaginative reality-related vision that communicates with our world as it is today.
Hipkiss have featured in group exhibitions at Tate Britain, London; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; La Maison Rouge, Paris; New Museum, New York; David Zwirner (System and Vision in collaboration with Delmes & Zander) and others. Works by Hipkiss are found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; Boijmans Van Beuningen Museums, Rotterdam; FRAC Occitanie, Whitworth, Manchester and the Treger/Saint Silvestre Collection amongst others. Hipkiss are a three-time recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Award.
