Words by Christine Clark via Preview Magazine.
Ira Hoffecker is an award-winning Victoria- based painter who builds abstract pictures with layers and layers of acrylic resin. After many years as a high-profile marketing professional, Hoffecker moved with her husband to Vancouver Island, where she enrolled in a local art school. Since 2005, she has earned an MFA and professional representation.
Hoffecker has lived much of her life in large European cities, very aware of the sometimes brutal history of Europe and particularly of Germany’s devastating betrayal during World War II. Much of her earlier work can be described as a palimpsest that seeks to translate centuries into paint and canvas.
“The original influence,” she explains, “came from wanting to discuss the different identities cities like Berlin had seen over the course of the last century. With the help of maps and architectural elements, I created abstract paintings that talked about the past and time periods we should remember instead of forgetting … So in the work one was able to see what architectural elements or maps were underneath. I created many layers that way.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic and the imposition of social and travel restrictions, Hoffecker’s paintings have changed. Incorporating oil painting for the first time, Hoffecker has introduced plant life to her urban constructs. Softly blended images of glowing, anomalous leaf forms, drawn from her lakefront garden and from her quiet forest walks, provide touchstones of comfort in an otherwise bewildering maze of human activity and experience.
