Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Heavy metal painters make winters warmer
I first saw Amy Hill's paintings in the Brooklyn gallery, Jack the Pelican Presents. I melted. But, after slowly getting off the ground and asking the nice people who run the gallery whose work I was staring at, they told me it was one "Amy Hill". She also paints guys who are into heavy metal. Wow. Anachronistic painting styles with urban contemporary subject mattter. Dutch Renaissance + Williamsburg hipsters, heavy metal dudes and bikers. Humanizing the poor people. She's like Kehinde Wiley's white girlfriend or something. Brilliant.
And she says this about herself:
"I have worked as a freelance illustrator for years and have developed a way of painting that is literal, detailed and labor intensive, like the Dutch Renaissance painters, using many layers of oil glazes. To create relevant and fresh images I’ve been choosing new and unexpected subject matter. My latest series of portraits are of bikers, heavy metal musicians and skateboarders. They are not meant to be anyone in particular. Their posturing, clothing, hair and jewelry are reminiscent of the fanciful dress of men of the past."
