29 Sep 2020

Amy Hill: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Front Room Gallery

Reviewed by Elizabeth Johnson

Amy Hill's oil paintings emphasize consistent, meticulous surface. They portray young, composite characters serenely posing with family, friends, and pets as they hang out, make art, play music, and marry. Supplanting details in Early American Folk with contemporary lifestyle clues, Hill's personae shyly inhabit smooth, perfect skin, stiff clothing, and harmonious environments: surfaces define and shield them. Their eyes suggest aloof listening, polite avoidance, and cautious consideration. As ciphers they house the viewer's projection by seeming alternately knowing and empty.

Two Girls on a Couch (2020) invites but blocks opinions about what the two girls might be experiencing. Are they listening to the same music? Their hands and iPods are comparatively less finished. Their eyes fix on different points. At once, they are secretive teens, twin Buddhas, and silent oracles.

Compared with previous paintings, Hill's portraits contain fewer details. Where her surfaces permit rifts in continuity, the facts are ranked, and nudge portraiture toward storytelling.