Just Talkin'

Q. So, Skip when did you figure out you were an artist?

A. i don't ever recall a time when i wasn't.

A child, scribbling on every scrap of paper in reach, is being purely, impulsively, creative. i create art because a constant spirit, an urge like breath, compels me to.

In second or third grade, on a J.A. Garcia Elementary School field trip to the Corpus Christi Art Museum... We went to see a traveling exhibition of George Catlin's paintings of a vanishing Native American culture. There, i realised there was a special place in this universe for people who did what i do. Up until then I hadn't been exposed to much art. I do have a clear memory of reproducing, with tempera paints, Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles from a laminated lithograph in someone's art class.

i was interviewed by a features reporter for the Corpus Christi Caller, when i was in sixth grade.

Seeing my cartoons in print, knowing they would be seen by many people that Sunday morning, the kids at school, confirmed me early on and validated my unique gifts and creative endeavors even when my environment often took what i did for granted or ridiculed it.

Q. What motivates Skip Hill to make the imagery he creates?

A. Try as i have in the past to be the purely conceptual or abstract artist I've admired, like DeKooning, Schanabel, Basquiat, and Anselm Keifer, my innate sensibilities are figurative and expressionistic, with metaphysical influences and myth, more like 'Sandro Chia sharing a glass of his vineyard's best Brunello with Francesco Clemente, Romare Bearden, and at his best behaviour, Van Gogh.

i try to keep it funky, fresh, colorful, textured, nuanced, ironic, beyond the initial impressions.

i celebrate with line, color, and collage, that which redeems us. The good mojo of newborn babies and the inherent beauty and humor in most folks and most things. Most especially Women.

My motivation is to create a body of work that is visually embracing, even beautiful,..is there room for that in "Art"? these days?...to engage the viewer on whatever level thay are prepared to receive the imagery? Some people approach the work intellectually, critically. They get it, they recognise the foreign languages, the literary and metaphysical references collaged into the paintings. Others simply like the color palette and contrasting patterns inherent in my work. Still others only like the Tembo Series of ornately adorned elephants.

That's cool too.

Q. Why do you have so many different culture intertwined in your paintings?

A. Ever since childhood, i have been drawn to the exotic and erotic, the different, that foreign thing that catches my eye, like a marble to a raven. My dreams, Herge's Tintin, and my collection of comic books took me to places i discovered in encyclopedias and spinning globes. i learned to curse in Spanish, going to school with Latinos in Texas. I had a puppy love crush on a Filipino girl in Florida. i traveled, lived and absorbed cultures in Baja Mexico, the Netherlands, Thailand, Germany, Singapore, Morocco and the American South.

So I have codified my experiences, impressions and memories of those travels into my personal iconography, Deciding to incorporate Buddhist poetry or Kuba cloth patterns into a piece is like deciding whether to use blue or green.

to be continued....deux.

myspace.com/urbanphilosophy