I'm a visual artist. Mainly of drawings
My primary interest is systems
How do you create patterns systematic but dynamic?
Where’s the line between chaos and constraint
I have a background in software engineering
Artificial intelligence
I was a software entrepreneur for a while
I dropped out and became a full-time dad (artist)
Surrounded by systems all my life
Systems help us structure information
But I’d rather know:
Can systems be interesting?
And what's more interesting?
The rules or the disruptions?
My practice is about making work FROM structure
DESPITE structure
My abstract drawings use repeated gestures
Regions of varying line density
Some are looped, some angular
But always connected (“single-line”)
There's a tension between the lines
Stitching together, pulling apart
People say they look like animals, objects
Handwriting, maps, music
Or language
Signs, symbols, glyphs, graphs
(“from structure despite structure”)
Yet asemic (“sound and fury ... signifying nothing”) (?)
My portrait drawings use the same linework
To fit photographed anatomy
Another constraint
More structure
My patterns of small objects
Sculptures and drawings
Office supplies (homogeneous manufactured objects)
Represent theme and variation / template and deviation
Where else does this go?
Real-world systems?
What kind of deviations are interesting in systems
That are physical ... technical ... or even financial?
"John Hovig's abstract work, with all its linear fluidity, takes on the quality of organic, biomorphic forms floating in an undefined space. Notice how the line undulates and twists round and round, how following its pattern mediates a meditative act of vision."
Joseph Staley IV
Curator, Glade Gallery