Skip Hill
Love Garden Party (Blue Shades)
2019

About the Item

In a world that often feels out of order, it is a profoundly human act to seek some semblance of control to reshape the world, and our experience of it, by whatever means of imagination we have. Reconfiguring my observations of the world using collage and mixed mediums is at the heart of my art practice. Through the medium of collage I decontextualize, reconstruct and rearrange disparate visual elements looking for a balance in the composition. Many of these images are sourced from the internet and the cache of books, magazines and unique handmade papers I have collected from my travels. The aesthetics of my art is drawn from African American folk art, tribal motifs, religious iconography, fashion, advertising and contemporary popular culture. My visual language is informed by my travels through Europe, Southeast Asia, Mexico, North Africa and Brazil. I find inspiration in the canons of art history, in particular Van Gogh, Franz Hals and the portraiture of the Dutch Golden age, Japanese Ukiyo woodcuts produced by Kitagawa Utamaro, and the collage works of African American artist Romare Bearden. Frequently the art features imaginative portraits of women that revisit and reorder perceptions of beauty and representation within verdant environments of ecstatically dense, yet balanced compositions of seemingly chaotic arrangements. In the ‘Love Garden Party’ series the environment is a party of girlfriends reuniting at a banquet table on a manicured lawn, enjoying each other among bouquets of flowers, scattered dishes of Japanese cuisine, and bottles of sake. The narrative of the series is suggested by the interactions of these women and their relationships with each other. The viewer is asked to fill in the dynamics of those relationships. Beyond the considerations of color, composition and subtle narrative, my art is most profoundly informed by intuition, improvisation, and the exuberance of process in conveying lyrical moods and lush, visual experiences out of the remnants and scraps of disorder scattered about the studio. For a critical review, consider any of the works produced over the last six years from the ‘Jardim do Amor/Love Garden Series’, but most specifically ‘Hush’, a mixed-medium diptych that best represents my creative thesis and current artistic direction. The Garden as a metaphor has been a recurring motif in my art over the last several years since my first trip to Brazil in 2012, and again in 2015 via an O. Gail Poole Travel Award from the Norman Arts Council. My stays have included frequent visits to the Jardim Botânico in Rio De Janeiro, a city which continues to inspire much of the theatricality, the dynamism, and sensuality energizing my art. In the painting ‘Hush’, the viewer steps into what Oklahoma Art Writing & Curatorial Fellow John Selvidge describes as “the verdant environment of an ecstatically dense, but balanced composition of seemingly chaotic arrangements. Birds are positioned as witnesses or pure potentiality at rest, holding the viewer with their gaze in a suspended moment of easeful tension.” Emergent abstracted plant forms erupt with blooms of color, contrasted against the loamy bed of black that serves as the grounding for the work. Hidden along the edge of the river and entangled in the thick growth is a mysterious figure looking back at us. Is she hiding quietly from a lurking danger? Or is she slipping away with anticipation of a rendezvous with a secret lover? Selvidge considers that, “Re-contextualized in terms of ecological, psychological and metaphysical urgency, ‘Hush’ can be read as a call to conscience through the dark overgrown landscapes of our quiet fears and fragile hopes. The work is an invitation to follow the path through the Garden, to find our way back home.” -Quotes from John Selvidge ‘Figure and Ground: Douglas Shaw Elder and Skip Hill’s Melrose Sessions’ Art Focus Oklahoma, Oklahoma Art Writing & Curatorial Fellowship, Vol.34 Number 1, Summer 2019

Creator:

Skip Hill (1961, American)

Creation Year:

2019

Dimensions:

Height: 18 in (45.72 cm)Width: 24 in (60.96 cm)

Medium:

Found Objects,Ink,Acrylic,Paper

Period:

21st Century

Condition:

Gallery Location: