JOHN HILLIARD

10.11 — 17.12.2011

TWO FACED

Born in Lancaster in 1945, John Hilliard originally studied sculpture at St Martin’s School of Art in London. His photographic work addresses issues of language and representation through a systematic exploration of the medium itself. In 1986, Hilliard received the David Octavius Hill Memorial Award from the Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner. His active participation in numerous solo and group exhibitions (since 1969) is complemented by his work as the author of numerous articles about art and photography. In addition to his work as an artist, he has taught at various institutions, including the Slade School, University College London, where he has been Emeritus Professor in Fine Art since 2010.

“Since 2002 the photographic work I have made deals, one way or another, with ‘point-of-view’ as a theme. Initially, this work recorded a symmetrical subject from four positions, always from the same height and distance, onto a single piece of film, as a quadruple exposure. The central element, similar or identical in appearance from each viewpoint, appeared on top of itself four times (strongly affirming its shape), while the differing backgrounds, also overlaid, became more complex, giving simultaneously both more and less information than a ‘normal’ shot. Depending on the subject, there are also some triply exposed works, and, more recently, simple double-exposures. These are essentially ‘profiles’, where the subject no longer needs to be fully symmetrical, but only to have the same outline, reversible from two opposing points. These works are shot on two separate pieces of film, then one is horizontally flipped to produce a composite print – again, with the central element (a face in profile, for example) reinforcing its identity, and the two opposing backgrounds now rendered as a complex overlay.

In some new work, this strategy has been further complicated by the introduction of foreshortening. The subject leans at forty-five degrees either towards or away from the camera in a precisely inverse perspective, so that placing one configuration congruently on top of the other now entails a vertical flip, rendering one superimposed view ‘right way up’, the other ‘upside down’, and allowing the ensuing composite to be exhibited either way.”

John Hilliard