In Georgie Hill’s paintings different visual systems collide. Gestural, emotive energy is held in tension against an analytic impulse, a hunger for the schematic – even the diagrammatic. These schemas shift against each other; they vibrate, poised to explode.

Hill’s works are rich with immediate sensory detail. They make use of dynamic, calligraphic brushstrokes and atmospheric veils of vibrant colour. However, physical intervention and manipulation disturb or complicate these fields. Hill draws on a range of techniques – including incision and folding –  to alter her works’ paper and canvas. The paradox of Hill’s mark-making is that it is at once both raw, visceral, energetic – and evidence of intent care and control. This duality offers a lens on the doubleness at the centre of human existence – that between emotion and analysis, exteriority and interiority, the mythical and the personal. An impulse that can be read as both investigative and destructive, it suggests a desire to unpick the threads of pattern that make up the phenomenal world.

Hill often references literary texts in her titles, and includes allusions to the work of Anna Kavan and Anne Carson. These nods are suggestive of a common sensibility. Hill’s work, like those of her literary touchstones, occupies a landscape of acute and heightened perception, a territory in which one might as readily encounter the inexplicable as the sublime.

Hill’s recent series of works explore literary and artistic portrayals of femininity, increasingly drawing on notions of the feminine in Greek and Roman mythology. These works are alert to archetypes that have echoed through time, and reflect on the ways such tropes continue to resonate and shape our contemporary lives.


Georgie Hill has been the recipient of 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. 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 solo exhibitions include: Feint at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, 2014 and the Beijing Contemporary Art Fair, 2019. She currently lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

CV

Lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand

BFA Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland 2001

EXHIBITIONS

2023

Venus Marina / The Roses Came Roaring, Sumer, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

2022

Venus in the Shell, OFA, 8 Gundry Street, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

2021

Prismatic Tectonics, Visions (formerly Bowerbank Ninow), Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Auckland Art Fair - Visions (group)

2020

Concave Iridescence, Visions (formerly Bowerbank Ninow), Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Auckland Virtual Art Fair - Visions (group)

2019

Beijing Contemporary - Bowerbank Ninow, Beijing, China

Residence Within A Prism, Bowerbank Ninow, Auckland

A More Comprehensive Physical Explanation, Bowerbank Ninow, Auckland (group)

Auckland Art Fair - Bowerbank Ninow (group)

2018

Unseen, Unknown: Unveiled, Malcolm Smith Gallery, Auckland, Curated by Alice Tyler and Zoe

Hoeberigs (group)

2017

Fluid Structures, Parlour Projects, Hastings, curated by Francis McWhannell (group)

2016

Forecast (Detail), Ivan Anthony, Auckland

2015

Semi-Supine View, Ivan Anthony, Auckland

2014

Rainbow Rose Parallelogram, Ivan Anthony, Auckland

Feint, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, curated by Aaron Lister

Object Shift, Objectspace, Auckland, curated by Ioana Gordon-Smith (group)

Hue and Cry, Issue no. 8, 2014 (page work)

2013

Pale Fictions, Ivan Anthony, Auckland

Feint, City Gallery Wellington, curated by Aaron Lister

2012

Chromesthesia, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington

Breathing Space (with Zina Swanson), Christchurch Art Gallery

2011

True Time lurks, Ivan Anthony, Auckland

Cy, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington (group)

2010

Protective Colouration, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington

Cold Shoulder, Ivan Anthony, Auckland

Brought to Light: A New View of the Collection, Christchurch Art Gallery (group)

2009

L - shaped counter, The Physics Room, Christchurch

Cloud 9 – New directions in contemporary painting, Christchurch Art Gallery (group)

Auckland Art Fair - Ivan Anthony (group)

2008

Watchtower, Ivan Anthony, Auckland

National Drawing Award, Artspace, Auckland; Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington; The Physics

Room, Christchurch (group)

2007

Every colour by itself (with Saskia Leek and Daniel Calvert), Ivan Anthony, Auckland

2003

Pelvic Trust (artist run initiative), Auckland (group)

2002

House and Garden (with Ruth Buchanan), George Fraser Gallery, Auckland

2001

Decoration and Crime (with Ruth Buchanan), Enjoy Gallery, Wellington

Banned practice, Newcall Tower, Auckland, curated by Anthony Byrt (group)

Pre-memorabilia, The Fame Game, Rm 401, Auckland (group)

FOXYMORON ARTS ZINE 2002 - 2005

Co-publisher/Co-Editor with Melanie Tangaere Baldwin

AWARDS

2020

Youkobo Art Space residency, Tokyo

2019

C Art Trust Award

2011

Olivia Spencer Bower Foundation Art Award (1 Year residency)

COLLECTIONS

The Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū

The Arts House Trust, Auckland

University of Auckland, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

SELECTED REVIEWS AND TEXTS

Macdonald, Theo, Frozen Storms - Georgie Hill, North & South Magazine, February 2024, pg 70 -72

Cunnane, Abby, 50 Things Collectors Should Know / Notable Accolades - Georgie Hill, Art Collec-

tor Magazine Australia, #95 Jan - Mar 2021, pg 128,129

Holdaway, Chris, The Weather in My Head - Georgie Hill, Verb Wellington, 2020

Essuah, India, The Unmissables: Three Artworks to See in September, Pantograph Punch,

22.09.20

Cunnane, Abby, A greengage sea, exhibition catalogue text, Concave Iridescence, Visions 2020

Clarke, Andrew, Residence Within a Prism, exhibition catalogue text, Bowerbank Ninow 2019

Tyler, Linda, Georgie Hill, Detailing the route between order and chaos, exhibition essay for Fluid

Structures, Parlour Projects, Hastings, 2017, curated by Francis McWhannell

Smaill, Anna, Forecast (Detail), exhibition essay for Forecast (Detail), Ivan Anthony, 2016

Tyler, Linda, From Ghillie Suit to Glittering Kowhaiwhai - Contemporary New Zealand Artists De-

ploy the Camouflage Aesthetic, Camouflage Cultures: Beyond the Art of Disappearance, Sydney

University Press, 2015

McNamara, TJ, Dashing way with the abstract, The NZ Herald, August 8 2015

McNamara, TJ, Abstraction a driving force, The NZ Herald, Sept 20 2014

Burgess, Malcolm, Feint, Art New Zealand, Issue 149, Summer 2014

Lister, Aaron, Ripolin, Feint exhibition catalogue, City Gallery Wellington, 2014

Smaill, Anna, Feint, Feint exhibition catalogue, City Gallery Wellington, 2014

Tyler, Linda, The Elegant Detail, Feint exhibition catalogue, City Gallery Wellington, 2014

Cardy, Tom, Watercolours take on new meaning, The Dominion Post, Dec 12, 2013

Were, Virginia, Intense vibrations of colour, Art News NZ, Spring 2012, pg 74

McNamara, TJ, A fitting tribute to Frances Hodgkins, The NZ Herald, 3 April, 2010

Hay, Jennifer, Cloud 9 – New directions in contemporary painting,, Bulletin B.158, Christchurch Art

Gallery, Spring 2009, pp. 42-49

Were, Virginia, The fugitive medium, Art News NZ, Winter 2009, pp.98-102