Today we’d like to introduce you to Carl Hopgood.
Hi Carl, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I began my artistic journey in rural Wales, on a small farm outside Cardiff deeply shaped my imagination and visual language. As a child, I created miniature installations from fruit boxes, flowers, stones, magazine cuttings, and found objects — an early sign of the assemblage style that would later define much of my work.
A pivotal childhood moment came when I met legendary actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor through a family connection. Their stories about Hollywood, photography, glamour, and Andy Warhol inspired Hopgood to pursue a creative life beyond Wales.
I studied fine art at Goldsmiths, University of London, graduating in 1994 with first-class honors during the aftermath of the Young British Artists movement led by figures such as Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas. At Goldsmiths, I was mentored by Michael Craig-Martin and developed experimental work combining sculpture, projection, film, and installation art.
Soon after graduating, I had solo exhibitions at prestigious London galleries including Waddington Custot and Karsten Schubert Gallery. My early work explored illusion and physical presence through projected film on sculptural forms, creating pieces that appeared to “breathe” or move like Sleeping Figure that will in in an exhibition at VISU Contemporary in Miami opens June 11th,
Over the next two decades, I built a multidisciplinary career in London, Europe, and internationally. In 2015, I relocated to Los Angeles, settling in the Hollywood Hills. The move marked a major turning point in my artistic evolution. Inspired by California light, openness, and the legacy of David Hockney, he began working extensively with neon and found objects. He has said Los Angeles offered freedom from the gloom of the UK, while the city’s growing contemporary art scene gave me space to experiment with new forms.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, my work became more personal and politically charged. Walking through empty West Hollywood streets and seeing stacked chairs outside closed bars triggered memories of childhood bullying and therapy sessions. This inspired his “Chair Therapy” series — sculptural installations combining discarded chairs with neon affirmations about identity, resilience, and queer experience.
My Los Angeles exhibitions, include “Fragile World” at UTA Artist Space, explored themes of masculinity, isolation, LGBTQ+ identity, and healing through art. My sculpture titled My Heart Is was acquired by The Palm Springs Museum and Works such as “Just Say Gay” brought me wider attention for combining activism with emotionally vulnerable sculpture. This Sculpture was acquired by collector Beth De Woody in Palm Beach and has been exhibited twice at The Bunker Art Space.
My work bridges British conceptual art traditions with the emotional openness and visual spectacle of Southern California. My career reflects a journey from rural Wales to the international art world, shaped by personal struggle, queer identity, memory, and transformation through light and object.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Growing up on a rural farm in Wales I was bullied at school. They would chase after me, call me names like fairy, faggot and gay lord. ( i later used these words in a sculpture called ‘Steps To Pride’ ) I managed to escape the bullies and found sanctuary under a stack of chairs in the school assembly hall and in th eart classroom. This trauma, later addressed through Empty Chair Therapy, is now channeled into my art to explore toxic masculinity, oppression, and queer identity. I decided turn this pain into something positive and use art as my therapy. Over time, I realized that I could have an even greater impact by making art using different mediums combining found objects with sound, neon, video and painting. I was inspired by artists such as Andy Warhol, Derek Jarman, Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci. Art that has the ability to amplify voices, spark conversations, and inspire action within communities.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Ive been preparing for an upcoming group show in Miami at the VISU Contemporary which opens on June 11th for two months. The exhibition is called Sacred Wounds : Modern Light.
I will be showing 3 sculptures – Sleeping Figure, I Am OK and Freedom To choose. This is the first tike that these art works have ever been exhibited in Miami and Sleeping Figure has never been shown outside of the UK. For Sleeping Figure which lays on a single bed frame and mattress, I create a liminal space for the viewer, one that exists in a state of transference from reality to dream and back again. The projection on solid plaster forms. which in itself is in itself an index of another figure, only becomes ‘alive’ when the projector is present. Sleeping Figure’ which was a marble plaster cast of a man laying on a mattress and metal bed frame seen from behind with a 16mm film projection projected and wrapped around the sculpture. The flickering image gave the sculpture life and the projector was the works life support machine. The sculpture was cold to touch, it was stone and not alive and yet the warmth of the projected skin tone gave the appearance of life. The sleeping naked man evokes the temporary nature of life, memories and dreams. A private moment made public at a time in the 1990s when the nude was very much out of fashion. I finally had the freedom to express myself without fear or shame. The work was later exhibited at a group show called False Impressions in Rome
I Am Ok also brought to life with light, only this time i combine neon words with two wooden school stools. The work is part of my Chair Therapy series. I first began the Chair Therapy work when the COVID pandemic began. I would walk past all the shuttered bars and restaurants in my area of West Hollywood and see all the chairs and tables stacked up in the window. It was like a ghost town. This experience took me back to my childhood experiences of homophobic bullying at school and hiding from the tormentors under the chairs and tables, this became my place of sanctuary. Drawing on years of Therapy I used a technique called Empty Chair Therapy. Through this work I show first hand how art can serve as a powerful tool for raising awareness about self care and mental health. I use neon words to occupy a space once inhabited by our younger self. Words of affirmation. The technique in therapy encourages us to imagine our younger selfs seated in the chair, a practice derived from gestalt therapy and designed to confront and resolve our current conflicts. It enhances self-awareness by encouraging exploration of previously avoided experiences.
Freedom To Choose combines a metal bird cage, which is suspended from the ceiling and a neon wire coat-hanger precariously suspended and trapped inside the bird cage. The powerful work address women’s reproductive rights. ‘It’s a piece about inequality. A twisted piece of wire isn’t just a symbol of dangerous abortions. It’s a symbol of inequality. The Supreme Court of the United States signalled its intention to overturn fundamental human rights, so the neon wire hanger suspended in a birdcage depicts the inability of millions of women to make choices about their bodies.
This exhibition brings together contemporary sculptors who challenge the stability of materials long associated with permanence—stone, glass, and fired clay. Through acts of carving, fracturing, layering, and illumination, these works transform damage into structure and disruption into meaning.
Across the exhibition, the “wound” takes multiple forms: physical incision in stone, accumulated imagery within glass, and luminous inscription in space. Artists such as Barry Ball and Adam Parker Smith rework classical materials to reveal tension between solidity and vulnerability. In the layered glass works of Dustin Yellin and Samson Low, light becomes dense—held and refracted rather than simply transmitted also includes Glen Martin Taylor. Together, these works and those from the other artists suggest that what endures is not the unbroken form, but the capacity of materials—and of objects—to be transformed, reconfigured, and made newly resonant.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Being asked by British Director Kate Rees Davies to be the subject of a documentary about my art and life felt like a difficult decision to lay bare my personal journey. But i decided to do it in the hopes of inspiring others from our LGBTQ+ community. It promises to offer insight into both my personal artistic journey and the development of “Chair Therapy.” The documentary short is called You Tried To Bury Me But I Was A Seed. Taken from my neon ladder aculpture of the same name.
The project wasn’t originally planned to be a feature length documentary. It stared with documenting the creation of work for an exhibition I was having at The UTA Artist Space in Beverly Hills. I had already made a neon assemblage sculpture called ‘My Heart Is Open’ that was displayed in the Window of the Maddox Gallery in LA during the Pandemic which was getting a lot of attention through Social Media and it was acquired by the Vinik Family Foundation. So it started as a film about that and I think it really became something bigger when Arthur Lewis introduced me to prominent collector Beth Rodin De Woody when I was installing my work at the gallery in Beverly Hills. The exhibition created a particular stir with its inclusion of a controversial neon sculpture called “Just Say Gay”, my response to the draconian anti-LGBTQ legislation championed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. That work was acquired by collector Beth Rudin DeWoody and is currently on display at her Bunker Art Space in West Palm Beach, Florida. We felt like it had come full circle and we had an important story to share.
In the documentary we follow my journey where it all began in Wales and how my love for art and sport gave me the confidence to follow my passion. Moving to London and then LA. The ups and downs of life, my personal experiences with bullying and mental health and how I use art as my therapy.
Now, with my community facing aggressive legislative oppression from extremist right wing politicians, I want the documentary to offer the same empowering message of optimism embodied in my story and art work to be spread to a larger audience as a reminder not to let the bullies break their spirit.
Another motivation, even more personal, is a hidden influence in another work from the “Empty Chairs” series: “You Tried To Bury Me But I Was A Seed”, which explores the massive financial success of a California citrus industry made possible by the hard work of a segregated Mexican immigrant labor force. “I was also inspired in that piece by a line from Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos,” he says, “who was sidelined by the Greek literary community in the 1970s because he was gay. It’s a small but powerful couplet which was included in the collection ‘The Body and the Wormwood’ that reads, ‘What didn’t you do to bury me, but you forgot that I was a seed.’
It is my hope that through my unique perspective, the documentary demonstrates how art has the ability to amplify voices, spark conversations, and inspire action within communities as a tool for advancing social justice and promoting positive change in society.
The documentary also represents a seed, one that I have planted in hope of spreading its positive power into the world. The film will be shown at The IRIS Film Festival, an LGBTQ+ film programe in Wales and at The Palm Springs Museum as well as film festivals around the US and Europe.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.carlhopgood.com
- Instagram: @carlhopgood @youtriedtoburymedocumentary
- Facebook: @carlhopgood
- Other: https://sculptors.org.uk/artists/carl-hopgood
