Justine Hill (b. 1985) is a Brooklyn-based painter who, in her own words, "collages different ways of making marks to accomplish a desired texture, color, or opacity for each form. Most marks are made from paint, crayon, pencil or pastel. The final painting is simply a composite of these varied marks and based on their formation can behave as animated creature or moving environments."
Hill's current solo exhibition, Freestanding, on view at Denny Gallery on New York's Lower East Side, shows off the range of her considerable technical capabilities and the breadth of her vision. Her lively and vibrant paintings are made up of shaped, canvas-covered panels. Layers of texture and color are built up within each shaped form, which are assembled together to create complete objects. The formal elements of each unit in Hill's paintings bounce off one another, resulting in a rich and varied interplay within, without, and between her cutout panels. The work is also full of energy; producing the occasional hallucinatory vibration. Hill's paintings are, in short, exciting.
To paraphrase Denny Gallery's description of the show, the objective of Hill's exhibition is to explore how her paintings can reassert themselves in space, reacquire their background, and become “freestanding”. The show succeeds in every regard. Through her considerate use of line, color, layer, and texture, Hill transforms the viewer's understanding of her shaped supports. In some instances, the painted surface underscores a preconceived notion about the form below. In others, the surface seemingly rebels against its own panel. Hill's work keeps the audience guessing, and the details of her paintings are transfixing.
The strengths of Hill's work are in the rigorous thinking that underpins them. She explores and re-explores the potentials and drawbacks of shape, of line, of content. Her marks are at once practiced and improvisational, but always very purposeful. By utilizing traditional formal elements of construction in novel ways and by undermining or second-guessing their usefulness, the artist engages with the history of the artform. In her work Hill interrogates the very medium of painting to dazzling effect.
Hill earned her BA at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and her MFA at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been featured in four previous solo exhibitions at Galerie Protégé, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, and Denny Gallery in New York, as well as at Blueshift Project in Miami. Her work has been widely reviewed including mentions in Artsy, ArtNet, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, and The Huffington Post. Her work is in numerous private collections and was recently acquired by the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. Her extensive CV, and her excellent current solo exhibition at Denny Gallery are indicative of her well-deserved status as a rising star of contemporary painting.
Freestanding is on view through March 6, 2018 at Denny Gallery.
Dwarf Set and Cyclops, by Justine Hill
Bookend 3, by Justine Hill