Jeanne Hoffman

MA Visual Arts

“What will happen if I go to stay in the Finnish countryside and take only a crochet needle, circular knitting needles, a blue marker, paper and one chisel?

I draw, walk, knit, eat lingonberries and smoked salmon with hard dark rye bread that exercises the jaw muscles. Make sauna; draw; crochet. I learn to use kiitos, hyvaa and no nii in every conversation; I practice counting and naming the days of the week in Finnish. It becomes a mantra. Maanantai, Lauantai, Keskivikko… and so the weeks pass. I read the Kalevala because it is the anniversary of this epic creation myth. I use what is as hand – the language, myth and wood from the sauna´s store. It is birch. It smells wonderful when I cut into it. I draw every day, with the blue marker and the chisel. The drawn lines become a narrative. The drawings become a stages – they enact moments from my time here.”

WWW.JEANNEHOFFMAN.BLOGSPOT.COM (www.jeannehoffman.blogspot.com)

Jeanne Hoffman (b.1978) is a Cape Town based artist who works mostly in the media of drawing, lithography and installation. Her work fuses the conceptual and formal concerns of drawing with found materials in three-dimensional constructions.

The theme of her work centers around drawing’s capacity as a cultural repository, which assert the individual’s presence in contemporary urban spaces. The interplay between the personal and the social, in her installations underscores her interest in collaborative arts projects in the fields of education and interdisciplinary research.

Hoffman has worked in the field of arts education, in various capacities, for the last eight years. These include teaching at secondary and tertiary level, as well as co-ordinating and facilitating various environmental education community projects. Hoffman has recently completed a MA degree in Visual Arts (Drawing near: inscribing urban spaces) at the University of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, where she was employed as lecturer from 2006 until 2008.

Hoffman has participated in a number of two-person and group exhibitions in South Africa and internationally. She has had two solo exhibitions in Cape Town. To date, she has attended three artists’ residencies in Belgium and two in Finland (Raumars and the Saari Residence). She is currently a full-time artist.