Notes

‘Hoffmann eschews the perfection of the expected … to craft plates that are wilfully irregular – misshapen and rough around the edges. These broken spheres are the canvases on which he memorialises passing moments of thought that punctuate the highs and lows of his existence, so his plates take on a function that has surprisingly little to do with their form. You might think of them as a diary of impressions in which he sets down, in brief pointillist form, the details of a world in constant flux and motion. The plates come to stand in for clauses and phrases, establishing a form of syntax that is visual and textual at once. Seen in clusters, they come to constitute paragraphs, even noisy chapters of thought.’¹

1. Alexandra Dodd (n.d.) Portrait of the Artist as a Room full of Plates, available online at http://www.ruanhoffmann.com/media/