the foul-mouthed art of gina hoffman

One of my favorite words in the whole wide world of language is "fuck," so how nice it is to wrap out our dot com year on Gorilla Flicks with this spotlight on the art of Gina Hoffman. Hoffman? Yes, that Hoffman. Gina is the sister of our good friend and BMX legend Mat Hoffman, both of whom have found themselves on divergent artistic avenues in life. Rick Kosick gets the scoop…

Kosick: How did you get started doing your paintings?

Gina: I started painting words in college, but I was definitely on a college budget with butcher paper from the grocery store and kid’s paint. It seems life is always at its most turbulent when I dive back in, you know?

Absolutely. It’s a way to express yourself. How did you come up with the artistic direction you’re in at the moment?

When I paint the words I’ve usually gone through a rough time, and when you paint the word FUCK it’s like saying that word over and over and over again for hours. It’s an extended way of expressing the word and, in a way, exorcises what you are feeling that word about. So it’s a way for me to feel that completely and deeply and feel better about it.

Sure, I can see it’s a way to release any negativity you’re going through.

At the time I had a lot of negative feelings and it made me start to think because I have two teenage sons. Having those feelings isn't a very positive environment, so I thought about the power of strong words and how we give these words power—but they’re just words. And by putting words like FUCK, SHIT, DAMN IT, and all of those in an everyday font—I thought the most everyday font possible is American Typewriter, because that’s newspaper print—I want to take some of the power of that word and tone it down a bit to show it’s just a word. But the words I felt were particular ugly, like CUNT and SLUT, those are usually said in a harmful and hurtful way, so I wanted to try to make them look as beautiful as possible. I picked the most elegant script I could find and painted them that way and to me they look beautiful—they don’t look mean and hurtful. So I was just messing with how we perceive powerful words.

You’re taking a negative and turning it into a positive.

Exactly. I mean when I first started out it was more of exorcising the feeling I was having, but then once I did those the three—FUCK, FUCK IT, and FUCK OFF—I had so much fun doing that I thought, “Okay, so now what other words can I paint and maybe change the way we look at them and in turn start a dialog about it.” So that’s what started me on all the other series I did.

Have you done any art shows yet?

I had one art show in Oklahoma City at a gallery called Bombs Away Art. It wasn’t a big financial success, but that wasn’t the point of it. I mean I did sell some pieces, but the point was more of a dialog. Here in Oklahoma it’s a very conservative state, so I was a little nervous about doing the show because the point was not to shock people. These words are not there to create sensationalism; these words are there because of the power of the words. But I was asked to do an Art Walk on a little street with a bunch of galleries that are very avant-garde, so if anything it would fit in there. Oh, I will tell you I have my two teenage sons, Luke and Cameron, they’re big, bulky guys, and I said, “You guys have to come in case people get mad at me and you have to keep them away!” Ha-ha…

So what turned out, people would walk by and they would frown and turn away, or they would see the art through the window and immediately come in and smile. That was so wonderful, because I didn’t get people coming in being mean and ugly. The people who are close-minded just never came in, but the people who were open-minded came in. And before anyone could look at anything I would guide them to the artist statement and spend ten or fifteen minutes per group discussing the art. People loved it. We couldn’t even close the doors at 10 o’clock. They stayed open well past 10:30 before people stopped coming in. The best part about it was the fact that people wanted to talk about it. So yeah, it wasn’t necessarily a financial success, but it was a huge success in that the fact my art did make an impact on people they wanted to talk about it and they totally understood it.

Have you thought about doing a brother and sister show? Because your brother is a good painter, too.

He really is. His art is much more beautiful to look at than mine, but I would totally do that. He has one of my paintings in his office, too. He loves my art, but you know, if that would be something… how would it work? Because they’re two very different things.

But that’s good, though, because you want a little contrast.

Neither one of us went to art school, but my mom was very creative. It’s not like she had paint out all the time or anything, she was creative in other ways. We both started doing this very artistic thing in our later years, and I don’t know if there’s some genie that lay dormant for a minute that has now come to life or what, but I find it very interesting that both of us have gone down this path.

So if someone is reading this interview right now and wanted to look at some of your artwork, do you have website or anything?

It’s in the works, but I haven’t finished it yet because of life. I hope to have it up soon. I mean it was a big deal for me just to get business cards for that art show, because I’ve never had anything like that before. So I’ve started the process of actually being more business oriented, but I haven’t finished yet because I don’t know anything about it or how to do any of that.

Okay, is there an email address? That way if they’re interested they can write to you.