John Hopkins

Artist Statement

A Life on Wax

John Hopkins is a mixed-media artist who breathes new life into recycled, discarded, and overlooked materials. His work serves as a tactile exploration of the shifting interplay between life, time, and possibility, bringing color, light and movement to objects.

Working primarily with encaustic wax, Hopkins treats heat as an active collaborator and a force that allows him to fuse disparate materials like reclaimed glass, paper, and other media. This process is a constant negotiation: a delicate balance where intentional control gives way to the unpredictability of molten material. Each layer becomes a record of pressure and change, capturing the instability of the moment while entombing it in wax. By utilizing unconventional or reclaimed canvases, he integrates the history and weight of the "overlooked" into his compositions, transforming discarded substrates into sites of deep reflection.

Hopkins’ work explores interwoven themes of technology, food systems, and social justice, inviting a deeper contemplation of the structures that define our world. His art has been exhibited at the Art Students League of New York, The Arts at Castle Hill, Boston Psychoanalytic Society Institute and other galleries.