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"Oh, look dear, it’s some of that conceptual art." The spruce, middle aged Paddington couple didn't quite seem to know what to make of this show-but that's their problem. Actually, these works need not be taken too seriously. Hoffie's idea of 'mixed media' seems to mean mixing a contemplative presentation of a social-constructionist theory of representation with a whacky combination of kitsch textures. By not being too serious they acquire significance by sneaking up on it from behind.
I'll start with the textures-since these are easily the most arresting part of these works. Each consists of four panels. Two big panels, which I will describe shortly, frame little circular ones with cute little Japanese cartoons of animals. Over the top runs a lurid red velvet strip with Holzeresque slogans artlessly applied to them. Of the two big panels, one is composed of laser-print Photoshop collages of native animals and plants, probably extinct. The right hand panel is covered in fake-looking black lambs wool or cat fur, some with pony-tails or cat-tails protruding from them.
There is something simultaneously alluring and revolting about these furry panels. One seems to have real human hair sticking out of the middle. It’s hard to know whether one feels revolted by the natural or unnatural qualities of these woolly black fields. It’s far safer to think of them as simply kitsch, but that doesn't quite neutralise their ambiguous terrors. Neither nature nor culture, they are a gesture that has no place in the scheme of things, like the idea of touching shit.
The laser-print panels help to pull them back towards more familiar territory, and a genre of art which, while not very familiar to