Hannah Hill’s paintings fantasize about an alternative world. An internal plane made physical - Residual traumas made poetic - imagined worlds colliding with the historic. Paintings act as spells to express what did happen, what we wish had happened, and where it all intersects with a historical and ecological context. Using oil on large canvases, Hill sets up worlds inspired by the biome of the ever changing Deep South. Within them, female figures act as stand ins for desires and failures that are never expressly personal nor societal, as they fight off invasive species while invading the space themselves. Her images spring from personal experience as well as curiosities; archaeological finds, folklore, ecologies, ancient societies, medieval manuscripts etc. This sprawling research, combined with a life lived as a woman in the Appalachian foothills, a penchant for self reflection and an unusually religious upbringing in the foothills of Appalachia, casts strange imagery of feminine presence, landscape, fauna, flora and relic. This result is a forged personal mythology, where elements of the ‘real’ world and the supernatural are intertwined.
Hannah Hill (b. 1990) is an artist born and raised in the Appalachian foothills. She earned a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012, with a minor in creative writing. She has exhibited work across NY and Brooklyn with presence in publications such as ArtNews and The New York Times. She lives and works in Brooklyn, with her studio manager Jonesy, a shihtzu.
