Exploring traditional material, craftsmanship and storytelling, paying homage to people past, present and future, celebrating the human condition's universality, commemorating lives lived and tales untold. Letitia Hill is an Irish American interdisciplinary artist and researcher. Hill established her atelier on her farm in Connemara, Ireland. Her artistic practice is embedded in the process of rigorous research, navigating local histories, herstories, rituals and mythologies. Collaboration with local craftspeople and traditional makers influenced by new technologies plays a critical role in Hill's practice, influencing each work's creation and material selection. Through an interdisciplinary approach of painting, sculpture, photography, sound, video and installation, Hill creates a deep sense of empathy and intention to provide nourishing and safe environments for stories to be told and heard.
Hill studied at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in New Mexico, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2016 and is the recipient of the Emerging Artist of New Mexico. In 2021 Hill received a Masters of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the National University of Ireland Galway, Burren College of Art.
Statement
The Female Gaze Series
The Female Gaze Series, deconstructing traditional themes of the female gaze theory. This series incaptures five large scale, self portraits on canvas, amalgamating figurative realism in multiple artistic processes of photography, digital manipulation, acrylic pours, and oil painting. This series is an exploration of how the unspoken female gaze is misrepresented through history and mythology. The depth and breadth of this series encompasses reconstruction of the epic journey of female empowerment.
Acrylic Couture Collection
The Acrylic Couture Collection takes the painting off the walls and onto the fashion show runway. Transforming acrylic paint into original textiles by casting a skin of liquid acrylic into original molds and patterns. Since inventing this process, I have pushed the media further and sculpted couture fashion. I manipulate my acrylic skin onto models while documenting these wearable paintings in cinemagraphy, then projected in large scale immersive installations.
Acrylic Textile Series
The Acrylic Textile Series is a celebration of Eva Hesse's experimental post-minimalism and Jagoda Buić's monumental fiber art, installations, and tapestries. These pieces are an exploration of experiments combining new technologies with Acrylic paint pushing acrylic medium forward. Represented in small scale and large scales works, this series focuses on the struggle to balance the internal dualisms; on canvas, board, acrylic canvas, and installation. This series is also available as limited archival ink prints on aluminum.
Skins
Skins represent more loose compositions, layering acrylic skins of different shape, texture, and color on paper. The process challenges me by returning to a 2-D format supporting a complex narrative. Its’ composition is simultaneously simplified, contemporary yet complex. In some artworks, the acrylic skin chemical composition and application has been altered to create new inherent details within the medium. The series encompasses photography, digital manipulation, and the layering of wafer thin acrylic skins on paper.
Teal Collection
The Teal Collection is a melody of free flowing lines of mixed metals, Japanese beads, enamels, acrylic, and oil painting of wearable art. This collection is a study of the importance of the line. Walter Crane wrote, ‘The line is all important. Let the designer, therefore, in the adaptation of his art, lean upon the staff of line – line determinative, line emphatic, line delicate, line expressive, line controlling and uniting.' The challenge is creating this all important line in multiple mediums emerging from handcrafted wax carvings, incorporating ancient enamel techniques such as plique-à-jour and champlevé, in addition to miniature contemporary figurative and abstract painting. The Teal Collection is a celebration of mediums and techniques in a limited edition of handcrafted wearable art.