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EJ Hill

EJ HillArtist’s Statement

My work is born of the desire to exist, uncontested. It stems from the need to discover generative contexts for surviving the daily assaults on the bodies and psyches of those who find themselves peripheral to hegemonic orders; it is the evidence of my sincere attempts at self-preservation.

Through a physically demanding endurance-based performance practice, I utilize my body as both a symbolic and literal site for the presentation of social, political and sexual traumas. I am interested in the many ways physical and ideological bodies are constructed and reinforced—ultimately, marked by trauma, but also how, paradoxically, it is oftentimes through enduring such duress that these bodies are able to cathartically transcend their afflictions.

At times, the complexities of coming of age atop racial, gendered and sexual battlegrounds (where language and other bodies are the most vitriolic weapons) seems insurmountable. However, by creating performances that traverse hostile emotional territories and that shed an unrelenting light on dark corners, I hope to create spaces in which bodies may exercise agency in defining their own terms of presentation, existence and resilience, not only to survive, but to thrive.

Website: ejhill.info

Biography

Select Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions

2014
The Fence Mechanisms, Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles

2013
Dear John, Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles

2012
Matt Austin and EJ Hill: Slow Dance, ACRE Projects, Chicago

2011
Karen Bovinich and EJ Hill: There is no I in It, The Hills Esthetic Center, Chicago

Select Group Exhibitions

2015
American Survey Pt: I, PAPILLION, Los Angeles

2014
Racial Imaginary, Nichols Gallery, Pitzer College, Claremont

2014
Have At It, Curated by Laura Watts, Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles

2013
Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide, Curated by Geoff Tuck, Infernoesque, Berlin

Select Fellowships and Awards

2015-2016
Artist-In-Residence, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

2014-2015
Teaching Artist Fellowship, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena

2012
AAF Prize for Fine Arts, The American Austrian Foundation, Salzburg

2012
Resnick Scholarship, University of California, Los Angeles

EDUCATION

MFA, 2013
University of California, Los Angeles

BFA, 2011
Columbia College Chicago