September 9, 2010 – January 2, 2011
The Oklahoma City Museum of Art presented Jonathan Hils: INTERSECTION, September 9, 2010, through January 3, 2011. The second installment of the NEW FRONTIERS: Series for Contemporary Art, INTERSECTION exhibited a selection of large-scale, hand-wrought automobiles by artist Jonathan Hils. These steel and aluminum sculptures expressed the artist’s interest in the American phenomena of oversized vehicles and society’s relationship with them.
Hils’ sculpture investigates the place where identity and the mythology of things intersect. He employs an intensive fabrication process that consists of thousands of welds—individually connected and metaphorically interwoven—to create luminous, large-scale representations of objects of American desire. Whether one identifies with automobiles—in this case, SUVs—as status symbols or as expressions of masculinity and power, Hils reconfigures and feminizes them, in part, questioning aspects of contemporary American culture and how we identify with it.
A native of New Hampshire, Hils is an associate professor of sculpture at the University of Oklahoma. He received his BFA from Georgia State University (1997) and his MFA from Tulane University (1999). Before coming to the University of Oklahoma, he served as an adjunct instructor (drawing and sculpture), studio manager, and technician at the College of Charleston School of the Arts in South Carolina. Hils received the 2005 Oklahoma Visual Art Coalition Fellowship (OVAC) for outstanding creative work in the visual arts. His sculpture is included in public and private collections and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the U.S.
NEW FRONTIERS: Series for Contemporary Art presents the work of individual contemporary artists and current perspectives in the field. The Series was created to provide a framework for the exchange of ideas between the Museum, artists, and the community. NEW FRONTIERS connects the Museum to the international dialogue on contemporary art and emphasize the importance of the art-of-our-time as a critical and dynamic part of our daily lives.
A native of New Hampshire, Jonathan W. Hils is an Associate Professor of sculpture at the University of Oklahoma. He received his BFA degree from Georgia State University (1997) and his MFA from Tulane University (1999). Before coming to the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Hils served as an adjunct instructor (drawing and sculpture), studio manager, and technician at the College of Charleston School of the Arts in South Carolina.
The recipient of the 2005 Oklahoma Visual Art Coalition Fellowship (OVAC) for outstanding creative work in the visual arts, Hils’ work is represented in several private and corporate collections including the Hyatt Corporation, Four Seasons, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, and Equity West Partners. He has shown extensively across the U.S. in solo and group exhibitions. He was also selected for a John Michael Kohler Arts Center Arts/Industry artist residency in 2005.
He has been a visiting artist and lecturer at San Jose State University, the University of Wyoming, Appalachian State University, Longwood University, the College of Charleston, Renmin University (China), Wichita State University, and Brevard College.
Jon Brandburg’s review in The Oklahoman/NewsOK, Sunday, September 12, 2010
Jonathan Hils
Artist’s Statement
My creative interests are informed from a variety of sources including biology, industry, networks, systematic progression, crafts, ornament, textiles and drawing. My general aim to synthesize these entities into works that allow for both an internal and external experience psychologically and physically through the delineation of interior and exterior via the permeable membrane. These forms, whether representational or abstract, allude to both logical organization and chaotic systemization through the meticulous fabrication process of combining many small elements together to define the overall larger entity.
My primary body of work Alleviations / Progressions draws upon more formal ideologies of the sculptural object with sub-contextual associations to the craft object, genderification of objects, material transformation, and the passage of time. These works range from medium to large scale and public works that specifically engage human scale relationships.
Odd (@) Culture is an ongoing project initiated in 2005 that developed from a deliberate reaction to the elevated socio-political culture war in the U.S. post 2001. Conceptually, the aim of this work is to question the American identity as it pertains to both domestic and international perceptions of class, politics and belief systems.