Santa Rosa Junior College

Stephen Hopkins, Paris Old and New
oil on canvas, 24" x 60" 2009

Artist Statement

This painting is based on the panorama that the viewer would see facing due west from the upper level of the Pompidou Museum in Paris.The gothic style church in the right portion of the picture is St. Eustache and was built beween 1532 and 1640. By contrast, the tall buildings on the horizon to the left are the modern towers of La Defense the”city of business” which was started in the late 1950’s and lies just outside the cit limits of central Paris. On the scale of time beween the above, is the dome on the far left part of the painting, part of the Bourse du Commerce dating from 1885. The sunset sky actually comes from another source, the view out of a window in the hotel where iI was staying when I was collecting material for this painting.

Teaching Philosophy

There are three important themes that I try to emphasize in any art class that I teach:

1. Learning to see and think as visual artists.

2. Making students aware of the fact that they are a part of a histoical artistiic continuum and that they are not simply isolated individuals trying t”create” artworks.

3. Gaining enough technical experience with artistic media to open the possibility of individual creation.

website: Stephenhopkins.net

FACULTY SHOW 2009: Recent Work by SRJC Faculty

Artist Statement

Teaching Philosophy