HOLD IT, HOLD ON
GEORGIA HILL
29.09.2023 ~ 16.10.2023
"Hold It, Hold On is a very personal exhibition for me - these works come from an over-due reflection of my experiences and environments, as they sit alongside each other in my memory. This exhibition pushes my understanding of landscapes into abstract scenes, connecting them with fragments of conversations and writing. These all have resonated or forged something inside me, where composition and contexts come together, clash and form their own place. It's been an opportunity to see new detail, connection and meaning as I move on to what is next."
– Georgia Hill
Artist Interview with Backwoods Gallery Curator, Tom Groves
What were the thoughts behind the choice of title ’Hold It, Hold On’ for this Exhibition?
I was thinking a lot about where I am at in life, and my friends and family too - there has been a real sense of what is coming up, and do we actually want that to happen. To me, the title speaks to both wanting things as they are, that points of time should be valued even if they are rough or uncertain. And it also speaks to what kind of life you might want, that we reach for something and ultimately are pulled (or dragged!) to what is next.
What do you hope people are thinking about, a hour, a day, a week, a month after coming to see ’Hold It, Hold On’?
This exhibition was really personal, as it came from a lot of reflection and a tough time. It was strange to want to capture that, but not for the negatives - more for the real depth these melancholy feelings can have, which to me are rich and beautiful. I hope people have different moments in the works just like I experienced - sometimes we can feel lonely and isolated, sometimes we feel full and motivated. I'm constantly moving between these states and using phrasing to hold that moment or create a glimpse of a narrative, so I hope people bring their own moments to different pieces too.
Can you tell me the story of one specific artwork that you chose to paint? What is the subject? a little history of the artwork and your connection to it basically…
Mount Ache is one of my favourite works, and came together really quickly. I was using card, paper and printed images of rocks and cliffs to create compositions, and kept coming to these crunched-up pieces, with light and dark and shadow, and thinking of mountains and their rough rocky edges. I've been researching a lot of mountains to visit, to get a reality check and feel small, and this just felt like so many past and present ideas in one - from emotionally scaling the past few months, to wanting to make this painting 10m tall, to seeing this looming, sublime mass in front of me and the feelings of overwhelm or awe that can bring. 'Ache' has been a word I've been exploring but won't make the cut for public art, so this is for me, my Mount Ache.
What informs the text elements of your paintings? They speak in a universal, but also quite personal language.
The messages I convey are usually personal to my own experience at that time, but when combined with new contexts and significant scale, become abstracted and ambiguous in a way that is wide open to interpretation. I love to use colloquial language, things I've misheard or fragments of something I have felt or read - some phrases get stuck in my head like a song lyric, or like poetry. I think of them in that sense, that they are part of a bigger picture while looking very closely at a moment.
I’ve had a vast range of interpretations to your abstracted forms in these new works, from landscapes, to crinkled paper to glitches on screen. How have these marks come to you and what do you see in them?
A huge part of the process in creating this body of work was about pushing myself to move into landscapes, but in a way that I enjoy - I want to touch and move paper, and let things unfold infront of me. I really have to give up control somewhere in my work, and collaging become that space. I printed off many travel photos, from Tasmania to Petra and San Diego, and wanted to explore not just the physical impressions but also the emotions and headspace I was in at those times. I wanted to push myself to use real references, and build a new visual language, to see what new messages and feeling might come to me.
