"The Gate Keeper", Bay Area Figurative Abstract by John Hoft

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A highly abstracted figure emerges in fluid, elegant brush strokes, reminiscent of the works of Francis Bacon, in this striking … Read more A highly abstracted figure emerges in fluid, elegant brush strokes, reminiscent of the works of Francis Bacon, in this striking abstract painting by Bay Area Figurative artist John Hoft (American, 20th century). The figure's face, like Bacon's, is a smear of colors in motion, which contrasts with the sharply rendered black form of the torso.

Signed and dated "J. Hoft 88" lower right.
Titled "The Gatekeeper" on verso.
Presented in a custom wood window box frame, painted black with navy blue recessed border.
Image size: 35"H x 23"W.


A Bay Area Figurative artist known for abstract figural works, John Hoft exhibited widely in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Several of his works were included in the collection of the George Krevsky Fine Art Gallery in San Francisco. Hoft, born in 1947 in Milwaukee, now lives near San Francisco in Albany, California, where he works at various construction-related jobs. He recalls the 50s as a period of conformity that “pushed people into doing things they didn’t have the means for”–like his father, a “jack-of-all-trades type” who “suffered greatly” from the pressures to conform. Hoft’s experience with building materials seems to inform the present work; he produced the colored plaster surfaces using a process of his own invention that he won’t divulge.

It doesn’t matter: the effects are what riveted me. Ethos looks almost random at first–it’s as if Hoft were avoiding any one system of mark making. A piece of twisted sheet metal sits in front of pale brown-and-green plaster whose design breaks down into three distinctly different sections–in one, brown lines appear to be incised in the plaster, while another includes raised brown areas. Hoft makes the viewer vacillate between recognition of the solidity of things–the metal plate–and meditation on ethereal patterns whose origins are a mystery.

Other exhibitions include:
The Weir Gallery, Oakland, 1987
Vision Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
Hoffman Gallery, Emeryville, 1989
Griffith Gallery, San Francisco
Perimeter Gallery, Chicago 1991 See less