Magazine Spread | David Hilliard

Leading Grid| Magazine Spread Katie House Viscom 202 Andrea Herstowski Fall 2013

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VAST TELLING| David Hilliard David Hilliard’s vibrant color photographs, usually triptychs or larger compositions, present elaborate narratives exploring a range of themes and situations, from the awkwardness of adolescence to masculinity disarmed. Formally, these staged photographs share the style of contemporary photographers like Gregory Crewdson and Anna Gaskell, among others.

Yet Hilliard draws less from the realm of the fantastic and instead looks to his immediate surroundings to draw inspiration, as he deftly fuses autobiography with fiction to engage a host of complex ideas.

David Hilliard is a Boston-based photographer known for his unique multi-panel images that present complex, yet personal narratives. Represented by galleries in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, and at the Bernard Toale Gallery here in Boston, David has become a major figure in photography, and an active photography educator. He has taught at Harvard, Mass Art, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and at Yale University. His photographs are exhibited both nationally and internationally and he has received numerous awards including a Fulbright grant and a Guggenheim fellowship.

As a child, his father and grandfather were photographic hobbyists. Hilliard joined the two and developed a new passion. Photography became a medium that he could navigate and control, much appreciated in a world of chaos. For Hilliard, photography was a therapeutic and had a historical connection to him. Very early in his adolescence, Hilliard discovered his homosexuality. It was in this self-discovery that he connected with other accepting persons his age who, like himself, were either gay or held an interest in art. As a gay artist, Hilliard’s photographs of men often possess a sense of male eros, portraying a very specific type of male; one who resembles the conventional hunky jock or a heroic protagonist of western literature; his physique oozing with testosterone and masculinity.

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Hilliard creates large-scale color photographs, often based on his life or the lives of people around him. What he creates are multi-panel groupings of images, sometimes two, three, or four panels of a single scene. Yet there is no attempt to

Beach Closed (2004) | David Hilliard

make a seamless image. Each component is treated separately, and depth of field, focus and lighting may change slightly from panel to panel within a single group. The majority are shot in rural outdoor settings - ranging from a lake in western Maine to marshy shorelines an hour from Anchorage, Alaska - and all are staged with such sensitivity that they appear as if the photographer had encountered his subjects by chance. Notably, the individual photographs from each work employ slightly different depths of field and focal points; the resultant tableaux gently upend any unified perspective on the scene, and, in the photographs of fathers and sons - the show’s strongest pieces - suggest the emotional distance between their subjects. The results are mesmerizing. Imbued with an unmistakable narrative quality, they read like complete paragraphs excerpted from short stories.

As story teller, Hilliard plays with the ideas of antagonists, protagonists and plot, keeping the audience intrigued by hinting at ambiguous events that may have occurred—or may occur. Hilliard photographs the ordinary extraordinariness of his every day life in shooting elaborate scenes with a large format camera. Yet, it is in the concept of his meticulous compilation of several images to create a panoramic that Hilliard’s photographs become the tableaux. David Hilliard’s vibrant color photographs, usually triptychs or larger compositions, present elaborate narratives exploring a range of themes and situations, from the awkwardness of adolescence to masculinity disarmed. Formally, these staged photographs share the style of contemporary photographers like Gregory Crewdson and Anna Gaskell, among others.

Yet Hilliard draws less from the realm of the fantastic and

instead looks to his immediate surroundings to draw inspiration, as he deftly fuses autobiography with fiction to engage a host of complex ideas.

The Tale is True, an exhibition of new photographs by David Hilliard. In this new body of work, Hilliard continues to deconstruct issues surrounding familial relation-ships, and the struggle to secure a sense of self and place in a chaotic world. For over 20 years Hilliard has intermittently made photographs of his father, often including himself, exploring the relationship and the process of aging. In The Tale is True, Hilliard returns to the father-son narrative, using his multi-panel panoramas (polyptychs) to explore a family’s perseverance as they struggle to avoid an entropic slide towards ruin. Their Cape Cod family home, a legacy of gen-

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Chick (2012) | David Hilliard

“This sequencing of photographs and shifting of focal planes allows me the luxury of guiding the viewer across the photograph, directing their eye; an effect which could not be achieved through a single image.�

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erations of Yankee prosperity and tradition, serves as a symbol of identity, entrapment and history. Within these photographs, Hilliard unfolds the story of a father and son trying to maintain their physical and emotional footing while being swept up in the confluence of a complicated past and uncertain future. The tension between disillusionment and hope pervades this narrative, and is further punctuated by allegorical and symbolist cues within Hilliard’s multi-panel arrangements.

Hilliard’s father, a divorced navy veteran and retired factory worker, appears as himself in two of the works, both from 2008. The triptych Rock Bottom features, in the left panel, a close-up sharpfocus portrait of the saggy- and craggy-faced patriarch standing in a lake. Appearing at once stern, reflective, and vulnerable, he places his hands on his chest between two sailors’ swallow tattoos. In the right panel, Hilliard himself appears somewhat further from the camera. He bears similarly powerful, albeit gentler, facial features, and, on his hairy chest, a pair of trendier, more stylized swallows (he got the tattoos six years ago as both an homage to his father and an erotic adornment). Other works engage issues of intimacy, homoeroticism, and identity. The resulting scenes are as often elegiac as they are comical, always orchestrated with precision, and with a marriage of form and content that work together to immerse the viewer in the visual narrative.

471 (2012) | David Hilliard

Much like the polyptychs of Renaissance ecclesiastical painting, each of Hilliard’s photographs offers the viewer the opportunity to explore from panel to panel the universal story of a man’s frailty, and travails of the human spirit. Just as earlier paintings displayed stories or religious histories coupled with the mystic and mythological, Hilliard utilizes narrative and metaphor to reveal philosophical and spiritual themes of fate and faith, and the necessity of patience in adversity.

The for, concept and titling of the series is explicitly drawn from The Seafarer, and Old English elegy which tells the story of an old seafarer facing the hardships of his past in an attempt to create meaning out of his life. Hilliard’s poetic reference finds visual presence within the details of his images: figurines of sea captains, paintings of tall ships under sail, slivers of shimmering ocean glimpsed beyond the ruin of the house. The poem, though mournful, ends with an uncertain, but lasting beauty. Hilliard explains, “it’s my intention that (the photographs) serve as a testament to perserverance; within even the bleakest of histories there exist threads of enduring hope, reminding us that even in the face of great adversity, we adapt and endure.”

David Hilliard is a Boston-based photographer known for his unique multi-panel images that present complex, yet personal narratives. Represented by galleries in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, and at the Bernard Toale Gallery here in Boston, David has become a major figure in photography, and an active photography educator. He has taught at Harvard, Mass Art, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and at Yale University. His photographs are exhibited both nationally and internationally and he has received numerous awards including a Fulbright grant and a Guggenheim fellowship.

As a child, his father and grandfather were photographic hobbyists. Hilliard joined the two and developed a new passion. Photography became a medium that he could navigate and control, much appreciated in a world of chaos. For Hil-

liard, photography was a therapeutic and had a historical connection to him. Very early in his adolescence, Hilliard discovered his homosexuality. It was in this self-discovery that he connected with other accepting persons his age who, like himself, were either gay or held an interest in art. As a gay artist, Hilliard’s photographs of men often possess a sense of male eros, portraying a very specific type of male; one who resembles the conventional hunky jock or a heroic protagonist of western literature; his physique oozing with testosterone and masculinity.

Hilliard creates large-scale color photographs, often based on his life or the lives of people around him. What he creates are multi-panel groupings of images, sometimes two, three, or four panels of a single scene. Yet there is no attempt to make a seamless image. Each component is treated separately, and depth of field, focus and lighting may change slightly from panel to panel within a single group. The majority are shot in rural outdoor settings - ranging from a lake in western Maine to marshy shorelines an hour from Anchorage, Alaska - and all are staged with such sensitivity that they appear as if the photographer had encountered his subjects by chance. Notably, the individual photographs from each work employ slightly different depths of field and focal points; the resultant tableaux gently upend any unified perspective on the scene, and, in the photographs of fathers

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Dad (1998) | David Hilliard

and sons - the show’s strongest pieces - suggest the emotional distance between their subjects. The results are mesmerizing. Imbued with an unmistakable narrative quality, they read like complete paragraphs excerpted from short stories.

As story teller, Hilliard plays with the ideas of antagonists, protagonists and plot, keeping the audience intrigued by hinting at ambiguous events that may have occurred—or may occur. Hilliard photographs the ordinary extraordinariness of his every day life in shooting elaborate scenes with a large format camera. Yet, it is in the concept of his meticulous compilation of several images to create a panoramic that Hilliard’s photographs become the tableaux. David Hilliard’s vibrant color photographs, usually triptychs or larger compositions, present elaborate narratives exploring a range of themes and situations, from the awkwardness of adolescence to masculinity disarmed. Formally, these staged photographs share the style of contemporary photographers like Gregory Crewdson and Anna Gaskell, among others.

Yet Hilliard draws less from the realm of the fantastic and instead looks to his immediate surroundings to draw inspiration, as he deftly fuses autobiography with fiction.

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The Tale is True, an exhibition of new photographs by David Hilliard. In this new body of work, Hilliard continues to deconstruct issues surrounding familial relation-ships, and the struggle to secure a sense of self and place in a chaotic world. For over 20 years Hilliard has intermittently made photographs of his father, often including himself, exploring the relationship and the process of aging. In The Tale is True, Hilliard returns to the father-son narrative, using his multi-panel panoramas (polyptychs) to explore a family’s perseverance as they struggle to avoid an entropic slide towards ruin. Their Cape Cod family home, a legacy of generations of Yankee prosperity and tradition, serves as a symbol of identity, entrapment and history. Within these photographs, Hilliard unfolds the story of a father and son trying to maintain their physical and emotional footing while being swept up in the confluence of a complicated past and uncertain future. The tension between disillusionment and hope pervades this narrative, and is further punctuated by allegorical and symbolist cues within Hilliard’s multi-panel arrangements, creating a dynamic narrative.

Smoke (2012) | David Hilliard

Hilliard’s father, a divorced navy veteran and retired factory worker, appears as himself in two of the works, both from 2008. The triptych Rock Bottom features, in the left panel, a close-up sharpfocus portrait of the saggy- and craggy-faced patriarch standing in a lake. Appearing at once stern, reflective, and vulnerable, he places his hands on his chest between two sailors’ swallow tattoos. In the right panel, Hilliard himself appears somewhat further from the camera. He bears similarly powerful, albeit gentler, facial features, and, on his hairy chest, a pair of trendier, more stylized swallows (he got the tattoos six years ago as both an homage to his father and an erotic adornment). Other works engage issues of intimacy, homoeroticism, and identity. The resulting scenes are as often elegiac as they are comical, always orchestrated with precision, and with a marriage of form and content that work together to immerse the viewer in the visual narrative.

Much like the polyptychs of Renaissance ecclesiastical painting, each of Hilliard’s photographs offers the viewer the opportunity to explore from panel to panel the universal story of a man’s frailty, and travails of the human spirit. Just as earlier paintings displayed stories or religious histories coupled with the mystic and mythological, Hilliard utilizes narrative and metaphor to reveal philosophical and spiritual themes of fate and faith, and the necessity of patience in adversity though his pieces.

The for, concept and titling of the series is explicitly drawn from The Seafarer, and Old English elegy which tells the story of an old seafarer facing the hardships of his past in an attempt to create meaning out of his life. Hilliard’s poetic reference finds visual presence within the details of his images: figurines of sea captains, paintings of tall ships under sail, slivers of shimmering ocean glimpsed beyond the ruin of the house. The poem, though mournful, ends with an uncertain, but lasting beauty. Hilliard explains, “it’s my intention that (the photographs) serve as a testament to perserverance; within even the bleakest of histories there exist threads of enduring hope, reminding us that even in the face of great adversity, we adapt and endure.”

This tale is true, and mine. It tells How the sea took me, swept me back And forth in sorrow and fear and pain, Showed me suffering in a hundred ships, In a thousand ports, and in me…

The Seafarer (Old English Poem)

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