Hope Brannon’s work includes several thought-provoking series, each incorporating a variety of media, processes, and techniques and each distinctive in its own right. On any given day you might find the smell of melted wax permeating her studio, while she is working on an encaustic painting, or you may see her sitting at a table meticulously cutting paper for one of her works in the “Alternate Endings" series. You might even see Hope in the yard ankle deep in a baby pool as she gains inspiration for her “Waterscapes" series. When not in the act of creating you will most likely find her engrossed in the research of symbols and stories. Whether concrete, traditional, abstract or psychological, her work includes broad symbolism, memories, stories, archeology and mythology that she finds relevant.
Declining several science scholarships, Hope chose to follow her passion for visual art. She attended Huntingdon College and earned her undergraduate degree in fine art form Auburn University at Montgomery. Shortly thereafter, she joined the faculty of a local college preparatory school. Although she intended to teach for only one year, her commitment to teaching art, in the school system, mushroomed into a 21-year experience. During that time, she obtained a Masters of Education Degree with an emphasis in art from Troy University, became a wife, raised a daughter, and developed her career as a nationally recognized art educator and a regionally recognized artist. Throughout her career as a working artist, she has curated shows, presented workshops, lectured, and taught students of all ages, ranging from kindergarten through college and adults. She has been represented by several galleries and has participated in both solo and group exhibitions. Hope has also been honored with national, state, and local awards and has been featured in a number of collections and publications.
While the majority of Hope’s creations may be abstract in nature, her love of the southern landscape is more than apparent in some of her more traditional works. Having grown up along the banks of the Coosa River in Wetumpka, Alabama, a former Creek Indian village, once filled with British soldiers and French traders, Hope attributes much of her creativity and sense of freedom to the history and folklore she was exposed to as a child and the practical aspects of it from a Southern lifestyle of work and chores.
Brannon’s “Alternate Endings Series” reflects upon memories, history and myths; and their distortions or fragments. The series considers such abstract issues in a visually contemporary manner, while being highly reflective of the quilts from her Southern heritage. Using her initial paintings, created primarily with aqueous media on paper, the work is deconstructed and reconstructed from bits and pieces of paper. Brannon uses a variety of methods to achieve her desired effect, among these are: inlaid techniques, weaving, collage (torn and cut), and even quilt making methods. Some of the collages deal with actual thoughts, memories and ideas while others include icons, stories, or symbols from various cultures or periods of history; and considers the notion of how memory is connected with identity and belonging. Through various narratives: one story, memory, or idea leads to the next, and the creation process weaves different layers of our relations to the world and how we perceive it. Brannon’s work reflects upon the idea that we as humans are all collages of our memories, experiences, cultural inheritance and knowledge, however real or abstract they may be.
Brannon’s “Fossils of Time” series casts a different light on the idea of place, land, its artifacts and history; introducing the dichotomy of the visual landscape and places charged with memory, meaning, hidden artifacts and energy. The work incorporates ideas such as technology, geology, astronomy, archeology, ecological events or fossilized life forms, and attempts to make connections with our own contemporary culture and innovations.
On the most obvious level, we expect a landscape to be a picture of the land, which may or may not incorporate such issues. We assume that the artist observed a place or an event in the world and wanted to record it but these images are really not of anything in that sense. They register only the result of observing and studying a landscape and all that “place and space” might entail. The abstract bas-relief work is highly textural and incorporates answers or questions that a place may prompt and Brannon’s responses to it. Brannon has described the work as both an evolutionary process and an experimental exploration of contemporary drawing through painting, texture and line. These mixed media works incorporate materials such as plaster, spackling, graphite, various types of paint, and waxes. The emotionally compelling mark making that dominates the work, reminiscent of ancient petroglyphs, is at once contemporary and primitive.
