Willard Hill: Untitled Works From 2016–2018
at The Good Luck Gallery, Los Angeles (through October 14)
Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner
“Imagination is greater than knowledge.” –Albert Einstein
“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.” –Frank Zappa
Willard Hill exhibits his exuberant mixed- media (mostly painted masking taped figures and animals) sculptures at The Good Luck Gallery. Hill was a sixty-two year old cook and avid fisherman who suddenly started making his objects as a way to rehabilitate himself after a hospital stay. He just grabbed whatever materials were around, such as masking tape, garbage bags and toothpicks. That was twenty years ago. Then two years ago, the 82 year-old Hill had his first solo art show at The Good Luck Gallery.
As with other untutored artist/makers, Hill is considered an “outsider artist,” which usually refers to those people who are not schooled in art — who do not come out of a folk tradition and who produce a consistent body of work, often later in life. A characteristic of those labeled outsider artists is that the work appears spontaneous, evolving in an organic, unplanned way, usually is figurative, sometime obsessive and produced in large volumes.
The gallery installation has nineteen smaller works situated on shelves that ring the three walls with the nine larger pieces right in the middle of the space on sculpture stands. On the west wall are two sculptures of small fantastical flying creatures reminiscent of the papier-mache folk art of Mexico. One is Untitled (WH221 flying bird red dots) 2016–18 mixed media/masking tape 9 x 7 x 11” and features the said bird with red mouth open, wings both parallel over the body, caught in mid stroke, just about to propel his jauntily painted self forward. This sense of frozen or impending motion is a hallmark of Hill’s work. The second small work, Untitled (WH 299 bird with fish in mouth) 2016–18 mixed media/masking tape 11 x 20 x 9.5,” does indeed have a rather triumphant, one might say beaming, bird with its multi-colored fish firmly in its beak. The bird’s wings are festooned with surprising painted patterns. This decoration not only evokes the skin of butterflies but also suggests the minute repeated patterns of beaded folk art pieces.
The most eccentric works here are the six small but peppy fish heads (and I do mean real fish heads) with festive hats and even sunglasses. These are happy fish heads, perhaps unaware that they have been captured and turned into inanimate albeit charming objects. One of Hill’s gifts as a sculptor is his ability to animate any object through cheerful color combinations, joyous patterning and sly exaggerations. Many of these masking tape sculptures involve the interaction between humans and animals as in the mythic Untitled (WH220 two figures riding catfish) 2016–2018 mixed media/masking tape, 11 x 15 x 21.” Two men are pulling each other while each is seated on a stump or a pail trying to unseat one another — kind of like a log-rolling contest. It’s a cheap but fun version of a carnival ride, as the men struggle with mock fear to keep their balance. This outsize catfish is the Moby Dick of the swamp.
Impending motion or forward activity is inherent in almost all of these works, however static they may seem at first. With both the Untitled (WH239 four figures carriage horse purple hats) 2016–2018 mixed media/masking tape 10 x 9 x 20,” and the Untitled (WH237 four figures in horse drawn carriage) 2016–2018 mixed media/masking tape, 9 x 8 x 17,” the action of moving forward has been temporarily halted. The passengers in both the horse and the donkey drawn carriages are dressed to the nines with fancy hats befitting the British Royal family. Dressing up for church is an ingrained African-American custom that is celebrated in these two works. . .
To read the rest of Turner’s review, go to Riot Material magazine: https://www.riotmaterial.com/willard-hill-untitled/
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