Camille Hoffman beautifully applies paint and mixed media to create collaged worlds that are fantastically mesmerizing, while also grounded and painterly. Her works inhabit a liminal space walking the line between realistic and other-worldly; timely and eternal.

In her recent work, Buried High in Heaven: Journey through nine antinomic realms, Hoffman uses golf course calendars, hair, plastic from a tablecloth, photos, and oil paint to create a monumental ode to her own artistic process and practice. Many of the allusions and collaged images in the work include references to her past weaving installations, thus welcoming viewers into a meditative space to reflect upon Hoffman’s own challenges, goals, and successes as a practicing artist. - Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor

Camille Hoffman | Buried High in Heaven: Journey through nine antinomic realms, 2015, Oil, photos, plastic tablecloth, golf course calendars, and hair on board, 108 x 48 inches.

Because of this self-reflectivity, it is especially fitting that we follow Hoffman in this Process of a Painting, as we move into her creative space, following her from sketch to finished painting in creating Buried High in Heaven.

Idea for painting begins with a rough sketch to map out general composition and pallet.

Sky is painted first, then the landmass, consisting of a ground of paint and collaged golf course calendars, is arranged in various configurations before images are adhered to panel.

Landmass is painted with loose wash.

Collaged materials including calendars and plastic tablecloths are applied. Other references that inform compositional development and concept are hung near the developing work as an inspiration to the artist, including a 19th century etching of the "New World" and post-it notes that spell out Hoffman's invented "nine antinomic realms."

Paint is used to blend collaged materials together and to define and sharpen the landscape's space.

Studio space with painting in progress. Hoffman includes her 2014 weaving pictured on left in her finished painting.

More collage materials are applied to surface, including more plastic, stickers, and hair.

Close up of bottom portion of painting, including an installation photograph of the artist with her 2014 installation, a 70ft. weaving of holiday-themed plastic tablecloths.

Detail #1 of top portion of painting, including a collaged photograph from Hoffman's 2014 plastic weaving installation around a Philippine ancestral display case at the Yale University Art Gallery.

The finished product: Camille Hoffman | Buried High in Heaven: Journey through nine antinomic realms, 2015, Oil, photos, plastic tablecloth, golf course calendars, and hair on board, 108 x 48 inches.

Buried High in Heaven gallery installation view.

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Camille Hoffman was born in 1987 in Chicago, Illinois. In 2009, she received her BFA in Community Arts and Painting from California College of the Arts and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale School of Art in 2015. She was a recipient of the Carol Schlosberg Memorial Prize for excellence in Painting from Yale University, a National Endowment for the Arts scholarship, and a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship. Hoffman has shown throughout the U.S. and in Europe. She currently lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut.

Ellen C. Caldwell is an LA-based writer, art historian, and editor.