Sean Hill’s solo exhibition Flowtricity embodies the harmonious interplay between flow and electricity, with dynamic movements intricately balanced throughout each artwork. Each piece in the series transitions piece by piece, inviting the audience to discover the artist’s evolving practice.
Mainly working with refurbished and recycled materials, Hill focuses on forgotten materials to create fresh artworks that are not readily obvious and lean towards an intuitive narrative. Interactive sculptural elements invite the audience to be part of the making process; by physically shifting each of the 7 refurbished wood pieces themselves, they create the artwork.
Flowtricity is an immersive exploration of how art can flow and transform through a physical exchange that blurs the lines between the artist and its audience, offering a new and exciting visual language.
Hill’s artistic journey has recently evolved to embrace a transformative approach, enhancing his abstract paintings into captivating visual languages that engage with and challenge the viewers’ perceptions. His works foster an element of mystery, offering subtle clues about their meaning while remaining distinctly abstract. Through this transformative period, Sean continues to push the boundaries of abstract art, inviting audiences into a dialogue that redefines their understanding of visual expression.
Hill’s solo exhibition at Grey Gallery has been made possible by early-career funding from Creative NZ. The funding will also support his upcoming solo exhibition at Alcaston Gallery in Naarm (Melbourne), guided by director Beverly Knight.
___________
Taranaki Ngāmotu-based multidisciplinary artist, Sean Hill is of Kiwi/Samoan descent and creates artworks that spark interest into non-traditional art-making and where art is going for future generations.
Graduating from university with an Honours degree in Visual Arts, his practice centres on creating movement within artworks, experimenting with colours, textures, shapes and materials. Hill has many ideas, perspectives and processes on how energy can be seen in a physical form through his practice; and looking at how energy can be internal transformed externally through human emotions and visual language—electrifying different environments.
Refurbishing pallet wood as canvases keeps Hill’s practice playful. The research process is central to the artwork, yet the ideas and concepts are at random. Through a rhythm of intuitive process, each artwork is unique.
There is a constant shift in Sean’s practice using colours, shapes, architectural forms, energy frequencies that manifest in abstract paintings that reference Samoan pe’a/tatau culture. All ideas create many rhythmic abstracted styles, all inspired by nature.
Hill’s heritage and conceptual thinking create a practice that is constantly evolving—reimagining nature and the physical objects around him, changing with the world but also adapting new ideas within his shifting pallet.
Notably, he recently exhibited with a group of Moana artists at Scott Lawrie Gallery, curated by Andy Leleisiuao and Sefton Rani, which culminated in a monumental solo mural installation measuring 8 meters by 2.6 meters.
