Canadian painter Joan Hill paints vivid landscapes and animals that reflect her love for the natural environment. Hill cites the Old Masters as well as the color field painters of the 1960s as her main influences, particularly Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis. She practices a technique called “stain painting,” which consists of applying a water-diluted mixture of acrylic paint on raw canvas, resulting in a watercolor-like wash. As the colors bleed into one another Hill achieves a unique marbled effect, almost like melted wax. For finer details, the artist uses a spoon to guide the paint into shapes. However, she likes to keep a certain level of abstraction to the composition and refrains from overly realistic representations. Bright red flamingoes, cobalt blue herons, periwinkle skies, and forest green pine trees speak of Hill’s unconditional love of color. As animals and sceneries come alive through swift gestural movements and a richly saturated palette, Hill celebrates the majesty of the natural world.
Hill received a BFA in Visual Arts and Creative Writing from the University of Victoria, in Victoria, Canada. She exhibited widely in the Victoria and Vancouver areas as well as Edmonton, both in solo and group exhibitions. Hill taught drawing, painting, and sculpture at Artistic Statement Gallery & School of Fine Art in Victoria for thirty-two years. An art appraiser as well as a painter, she lives and works in Edmonton, Canada.
