Nationality British Known for Drawing Name Chris Hipkiss | Education Self-taught Website www.chrishipkiss.org | |
Full Name Christopher Payen/Alpha Mason Born 1964/1964 London/Widnes (UK) Awards Pollock-Krasner Foundation 2001, 2007 | ||
Hipkiss (formerly known as 'Chris Hipkiss') is a British artist known for figurative compositions, ranging in size from miniatures to lengthy panoramas, created using a mixed media technique that combines pencil, silver ink and metal leaf. The name is a pseudonym of Chris and Alpha Mason, born Christopher Payen and Alpha Mason. Payen changed his name to Mason on their marriage in 1986.
Life and career
Chris and Alpha met, aged 18, in the bar at Brunel University, where Alpha was studying. Chris lived in the area and enjoyed socializing with the science students. Both naturally creative - Chris inclined to art and Alpha to writing - the pair describe the time of their meeting as the beginning of the consolidation of their artistic projects. After marriage, they relocated to Alpha's childhood county of Kent, but have lived in the south of France since 2001.
Until recently, most commentators have attributed the work of Hipkiss to Chris alone, something that the artists accepted, since he is the 'draftsperson'. However, in the past few years, they have begun to actively reframe the biography, for two reasons: firstly, as a 'feminist' couple, they felt that Alpha's input in terms of the conception and creation of the compositions has not been given the recognition that it deserves; secondly, they wished to avoid common misinterpretations of the work, when viewed as the product of only a male mind, as depicting the objectification of female characters. In earlier talks and interviews, Chris has said that he considers himself notable in that he is unable to work alone, referring to Alpha as ‘his greatest tool’. Describing their relationship as a ‘creative partnership’, he has talked of her as the ‘producer’ of their ‘team’, noting that she had artistic training that he did not.
The couple actively pursued artistic recognition and consider it to have been by chance that Hipkiss was embraced by collectors and academics of Outsider Art. In 1994, the magazine Raw Vision featured an article with a pull-out print of the first large panorama, entitled ‘Doddington’. Since then, this categorization has been widely questioned, not least by the artists. Chris has been quoted as saying “I'm definitely not an outsider, I'm in the world.” By 2000, Hipkiss' first reviews in major US and UK papers underlined a widening reputation.
Apart from major shows in US self-taught and 'Outsider' institutions (Intuit, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, American Folk Art Museum), the work of Hipkiss has been featured in exhibitions at Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, FRAC Picardie, New Museum, Irish Museum of Modern Art and me Collectors Room Berlin. Collectors include Antoine de Galbert, Arnulf Rainer, Janice and Mickey Cartin, and Cindy Sherman.
In a 2012 review, Paul Hobson noted that the works "... share something approximate with Paul Noble’s vast panoramic vista of fantastical civilisations...". Often described as ‘post-apocalyptic landscapes’ – an appraisal refuted by the artists - much of the work centres on the meeting of cityscapes and wilderness. It is peopled by feminine-looking androgynes which Chris has described as alter-egos. Featuring words and motifs inspired by 'inside jokes and endless conversations', and interests ranging from politics, via comedy and music, to a fascination with ornithology, the artists describe the work as 'a love story in the form of a visual diary'.