David R Hill
David R Hill is now 87 and has painted in and around Katoomba for some nearly 50 years. His oeuvre covers landscapes, still life, and as he calls them, ‘astral paintings’.
This exhibition presents a selection of new works painted over the last 12 months, plus a small selection of historical works depicting his aesthetic journey.
Hill graduated from The Julian Ashton Art School in the early 1970's. He studied painting, drawing and design in the diploma course from 1968 to 1972.
The exhibition includes a selection of life drawings and earlier paintings in oil, one in particular being a view from his apartment in Johnson St, Balmain, looking towards the city - painted in 1976. This work utilises a restrained and muted palette, indicative of the teachings at the time from The Julian Ashton School in visual art. The work also gives an important thread of insight into the development of Hill's shapes and forms. A small section, lower left in the painting, shows a shrub that has been loosely described in organic, interlocking shapes. Throughout Hill's painting career, these shapes and forms have evolved substantially, sometimes becoming jig-saw like in the treatment of his subject. The current paintings are very highly coloured and are often formed by sections of interlocking, organic shapes, quietly suggested in the 1976 painting The City From Johnson Street, Balmain.
These recent oil paintings are both energetic and uplifting, and yet still offer the viewer a sense of space, stillness and at times - contemplation amongst the myriad of shapes and colours.
