Studio Dabbeni presents its second John Hilliard solo exhibition (born in Lancaster in 1945, he lives and works in London). The exhibition is showing small-, medium- and large-format photographs from two phases: photos from the 1990s and recent ones.


John Hilliard, Studio as site, set and subject
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The work of the British photographer has featured a conceptual component since his debut in the early 1970s. In what can be seen as an exploration of the photographic medium, the artist analyses the complex relationship between the reality of the photograph and the illusion of the image. His pictures revolve around the basics of the photographic medium – the shot, the focus and the lighting – in the clever staging of a story that the artist always chooses to leave fragmented, incomplete and with an evasive meaning.

John Hilliard
Labour, Intellect And Celebrity
2007
c-type print on aluminium
cm 125 x 156

This process of deconstructing the image that distinguishes Hilliard’s work has been further intensified over the past decade with the photographer investigating the methods of representation peculiar to the photographic medium, pushing his research to an ever greater reduction of the elements and information contained in the picture. The artist says that this search is driven by a desire to “say less” to “say more”, almost as if his actions could result in a heightened perception.

Hilliard is inspired by the desire to demand a subtle use of the observers’ intellect but paradoxically the meanings contained in the pictures – always preceded by careful study on the artist’s part with preparatory drawings – prove increasingly enigmatic and hybrid. Two recent works presented in the exhibition and seemingly emblematic of this outcome are Yes/No and The Artist Circulates.
Yes/No (2006) is an ambiguous portrait of a woman whose head and feet are cut out of the shot; Hilliard presents a front and back view combined in a double exposure that could be seen as a reference to the artist’s exploration, which revolves tirelessly around his work.

John Hilliard
Yes/No
2006
c-type print on museum board
cm 100 x 126

Her dress falls gently and full on her hips, all red on one side, all green on the other. The superimposition creates a muddled colour in the centre of the dress produced by the mixing of the two that – as the artist explains – on the one hand weakens the encouraging “yes” of the green and, on the other, also the warning to desist represented by the “no” of the red. The exclusion of the woman’s head and feet from the picture helps to determine a hybrid front-rear effect, but this also highlights the tension in the pose of her body (the woman is clenching her fists); it makes it hard to fathom her personality and know her intentions, and to define her exact position, and role, in the surrounding space.

The Artist Circulates (2005) portrays an enigmatic and somewhat perplexing situation. It shows a woman moving around a studio filled with photographic equipment. In this case, the quadruple exposure adopted by Hilliard relates the figure - seen from behind wearing a gaudy, fashionable dress - to different parts of the studio, highlighting the multiple relationships that exist between her and the people with whom she comes into contact (technicians in work clothes, curators dressed in black, casually dressed journalists with notepads and cameras and young artists dressed informally).

John Hilliard
The Artist Circulates
2005
c-type print on aluminium
cm 128 x 157

The woman emerges clearly in the centre, seeming to glide around draped in the coloured dress that reveals her back, while those all around her, not clearly distinguishable in the superimposition, seem to use her as a point of convergence – it is a crowd in which the single identities start to become blurred.

Valentina Bucco

John Hilliard
Oblivion
1990
Acrylic ink on watercolour paper
cm 120 x 150

John Hilliard
Chiasmus
1993
Cibachrome on aluminium
cm 124 x 126

John Hilliard
Five To One
1997
Cibachrome on PVC
cm128 x 180

John Hilliard
Screening
1998
Iris inks on watercolour paper
cm 91 x 122

John Hilliard
Toe To Toe
2007
c-type print on museum board
cm 73 x 83

John Hilliard
Display
1994
Photo on museum board
cm 41 x 51

John Hilliard
Footpath Directions In Ross And Cromarty – Southeas To Ben Mor Coigach,
Northwest The Summer Isles
2006
Photo on museum board
cm 51 x 41

John Hilliard
Black Sheep/Black Wars – Two Opposing Views
2006
Photo on museum board
cm 51 x 41

John Hilliard
Troutbeck Tree – Two Facing Views
2006
Photo on museum board
cm 51 x 41

John Hilliard
Adrift on Stac Pollaidh – Between The Mountains And The Sea (Northeast To Cul Mor, Southwest To The Summer Isles
2006
Photo on museum board
cm 51 x 41

John Hilliard
Two Views From Stac Pollaidh – East To Cul Mor , South To The Hebrides
2006
Photo on museum board
cm 51 x 41

John Hilliard
Two Sides Of An Imperfect Triangle Viewed From East And West (On Stac Pollaidh)
2006
Photo on museum board
cm 51 x 41

Opening
Thursday March 6 – 18.00

Duration
March 6 – April 26, 2008

Opening Hours
Tuesday - Friday
09.30 - 12.00 14.30 - 18.30
Saturday
09.30 - 12.00 14.30 - 17.00
Sunday/Monday Closed