Hope Gangloff:she draws & paints

By Caroline Stanley at Gen Art

Walking through a gallery filled with Hope Gangloff’s paintings and drawings is kind of like flipping through an album of candid photos of your best friends (albeit, her subjects are a smidge cooler). Maybe that’s because everyone in this Brooklyn-based artist’s current show at Susan Inglett is someone she knows…right down to two dogs she pet sat last year, that in an indirect way, inspired her boyfriend (and fellow artist, Benjamin Degen) to pop the question.

Born and raised in Amityville, Long Island, Hope (who claims that if she was an animal, she’d be a bottlenose dolphin) always loved to draw. “I was cocky about it,” she has explained. “It was a way to relate to my peers and my family—be it to disarm, tease, flatter or explain things.” After spending her formative years painting in her parents’ barn under the tutelage of a local artist, Hope landed at Cooper Union, and thus her slice of city-life illustrations filled with images of beer cans, tattooed beauties and cult video stores, were born.

“It is very autobiographical,” she has said of her work. “This is my version of a scrapbook. I can look at these images when I’m an old fart and remember my beloved friends.” After hanging out with the artist for less than an hour in Chelsea, discussing everything from her artist friend Blaze Lamper’s perfect bangs to the hilarious videos on the Segway Web site, I wanted to be one of them. A lot.

When I told her this, Hope threw her head back and laughed a little, but she didn’t look at all surprised. And then she invited me to lunch.