GEORGIE HILL
Georgie Hill's watercolour paintings on paper work to subvert the medium’s limits or expectations, deploying diagrammatic systems of line, colour and pattern. The precision of the lines, incised into the paper surface, contain and direct the often chaotic and hypnotic painterly energy. Her work takes significant cues from literature, most recently the science fiction writing of Anna Kavan and Doris Lessing. Suggestive of extreme weather, patterns, systems, and prophecies, her paintings reflect the current collective social anxiety due to psychic awareness of climate change and the instability of the natural world. This work also develops other long-held concerns within her practice: early abstraction by women artists, the visibility of these histories, and the gendered politics of the watercolour medium’s critical standing.
Georgie studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, graduating with a BFA in 2001. She has received several awards and residencies including the Olivia Spencer Bower Foundation Art Award, the C Art Trust Award and the Youkobo Art Space residency in Tokyo (upcoming 2023). Her work is held in the collections of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, the University of Auckland and The Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Key exhibitions include Feint at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi/ Gus Fisher Gallery, 2014 and the Beijing Contemporary Art Fair, 2019. She currently lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
