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