Ira Hoffecker-Sattler

Ira Hoffecker is a German-Canadian artist who has resided and maintained her art practise in Victoria, Canada since 2004. She is an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists.

She studied art at the Vancouver Island School of Art in Victoria, Canada where she obtained a Diploma of Fine Arts in 2013. Ira achieved a First Class B.A. (Honours) in Fine Art from the University of Gloucestershire, England in 2015. Presently in the first year of a 2 year Master of Fine Art (MFA) program at the Transart Institute accredited through Plymouth University, England Ira will achieve her degree in 2018.

Ira’s work has been exhibited in solo, duo and group exhibitions in England, Canada and Germany. Her most recent exhibitions in 2015 and 2016 include five solo exhibitions in Abingdon/Oxford, England, in Berlin and Hof, Germany, and in Vancouver and Edmonton, Canada. Ira also participated in duo exhibitions in London, England and in Northrhine Westfalia, Germany this year.

Also, Ira was one of 20 UK graduates whose work was shortlisted for the Graduate Art Prize 2015 in London. She won the first prize in the juried ‘Abstract Show 2015’ in Vancouver with her painting Alexanderplatz VIII. Her Camp Moschendorf II painting has just been shortlisted for the John Moore Painting Prize 2016. The painting is currently exhibited at the 2016 Liverpool Biennial.

Education 2014 – 2015 University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, England, First Class Honours B.A. in Fine Art - June 2015

2013 – 2014 University of Victoria, Canada Design, Printmaking, Sculpture and Media Technologies

2012 – 2013 Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada Aboriginal B.C. Art History

2007 – 2013 Vancouver Island School of Art, Victoria, Canada Diploma of Fine Arts

1981-84,85-86 Sprachen- und Dolmetscher Institut, Munich Germany French and Economics

Artist Statement:

My paintings are informed by the different identities cities take on over a period of time. I am interested in how different societies transform and change city spaces over the course of the centuries. My work examines the relationships between people and cities by responding to constant change, reconstruction and restoration in the urban landscape.

Decay, erasure, covering, revealing and rebuilding take place at the same time and are part of my painting practice. I see my process of covering as a metaphor for forgetting and suppressing the past. The process of revealing and sanding the surface down alludes to a process of remembering and acknowledging, reconciling historic events. In many of my paintings I use layers of resin which physically separate one layer of paint from the previous one, and create actual and perceptual depth. Those layers are equivalent to the archaeological strata in the evolution of a city. Places are overlaid with multiple histories, layers of paint cover and obscure but each coat is also informed by the previous layer.

I adopt geometric shapes inherent in architecture and maps from different times in history that provide the basis of my compositional language. Studying history books, maps and photographs, as well as digesting the city by walking the streets, all inform my understanding of the identity of a place.

On a personal level, my paintings embody my own memories and the cities’ atmospheres, which I am translating through shapes, colours and lines: marks that articulate the physicality of painting. I use painting to explore the city’s evolution and add my own experience to the context.

Solo Exhibitions:

2016 Urban Identities. The Front Gallery. Edmonton AB Canada, October/November Berlin Identities. Zack Gallery in Vancouver BC Canada. June Urbane Welten. Kunstraum Tapir. Berlin Germany. February

2015 Urbane Welten. Ira Hoffecker. Freiheitshalle. Hof Germany, October-December Urban Settings. Sewell Centre Art Gallery, Radley College, Abington/Oxford, September

2014 Urban Layers. 1580 Gallery. Victoria BC Canada. June Urban Layers. Upstairs Gallery. University of Victoria, Victoria BC Canada. March

2013 Urban Reflections. The Front Gallery. Edmonton AB Canada, October/November Urban Reflections. The Gallery at Matticks. Victoria BC Canada. July Urban Reflections. The Sooke Harbour House Art Gallery. Sooke BC Canada. April Urban Reflections. Axis Contemporary Art Gallery. Calgary AB Canada.

2012 The Gallery at Mattick’s. Victoria BC Canada. May The Gallery at the MAC. Victoria BC Canada. October-December

2011 Ira Hoffecker – New Paintings. The Sooke Harbour House Art Gallery. Sooke BC Canada. February Urban Settings. The Front Gallery. Edmonton AB Canada, May Urban Settings. Dales Gallery. Victoria BC Canada. October

2010 Ira Hoffecker. The Gallery at Matticks. Victoria BC Canada. January

Current Art and/or research interest:

In recent work, I researched the six different political governments and/or regimes and manifold identities the city of Berlin experienced during the past 150 years. In my current research, I am looking at different ways I can investigate the diverse identities of the German society over time. In my painting work I overlay maps of distinct time periods and refer to buildings or institutions that were erased in the past. I am interested in how Germans deal with collective memory, with forgetting and suppressing the past as opposed to remembering and trying to come to terms with the past.

My heritage is German and therefore this memory is my past. In my current research work I am investigating and comparing the work of Christian Boltanski’s site-specific and permanent installation The Missing House in Berlin from 1990, Shimon Attie’s site specific photo installation The Writing on the Wall also in Berlin’s Scheunenviertel, from 1991, and Susan Hiller’s J-Street Project, a film and a photo series from all over Germany from 2002 to 2005. I have also started to create a video. I juxtapose images from the contemporary right wing extremist situation in Germany with the Holocaust. I overlay images of the destroyed cities in Syria with the audio of a poem by Holocaust survivor Paul Celan, propounding to a new genocide. I am looking at singular ways I can impart my understanding of those particular identities. This new video is a further development of my previous film and photo series pertaining to genocide. I created a film about Berlin and a photo series referring to 12 different genocides.

More about the artist: HERE