Andy Hope 1930 Paintings Subvert Comic Book Heroes And Villains From The 1930′s

moray mair | Art and design | January 21, 2013

Andy Hope 1930 loves the Golden era of comic books. His strange paintings and sculptures are informed by super heroes living in a parallel universe, a mythology of the artists own making, a place born out of our me generation. If you look carefully you’ll get everything from Batman and Robin as the Lone Ranger, the artist John Baldessari as Marvel Comics super-villain Galactus and the strip cartoon take of Linda Lee as Supergirl. This is a strange American Wild West seen through German eyes, a land re-invented and populated with counter culture figures.

Berlin-based artist Andy Hope 1930 has developed a far-reaching and diverse iconography pulled from comic books, science fiction, pictures of  dinosaurs, devils and villains as well as pop culture and literature. His over-paintings, collages and cut-outs made using everything from pencils to felt-tip pens, oil to acrylic on materials such as cardboard, paper, canvas, recycled materials and tapestries. And his name? Well here’s what Andreas Hofer – his real name - has to say about it:

Andy Hope 1930 is not an artist name, it is the name of a fictional character or persona in which I travel to different times and spaces.
1930 is like a sign in time, like a signal or point of orientation. It signifies the end of Modernism and of Russian Suprematism and the beginning of the rise of superheroes.

So there you have it, an anarchic mash of 20th Century pulp that says much about our consumerist society, our history.