A Hill To Live On — by Rob Sandall, Moniker Art Fair

Siris Hill is pretty much as far removed from the modern artist’s typical journey to acceptance as one could be: spending his childhood struggling with Crohn’s disease, learning to paint in an attempt to cope with the sudden onset of mental health issues that have dogged the Norfolk-born painter and driven him to numerous suicide attempts since the age of 19; being forced to leave his mother’s home and live on the streets because of those issues; gaining acceptance to university at 24 without the necessary (or indeed any) school qualifications. It sounds borderline filmic, albeit more Ken Loach than Spielberg, but the resulting work is currently in the process of dropping numerous critical jaws as the world wakes up to Hill’s talent.

For Moniker art fair, Hill developed a solution to transition his digital works into physical form using light boxes, allowing visitors to engage with the literal and symbolic depth of each piece. The approach drew strong reviews across the course of the week.

Tina Zeigler, Director of Moniker Art Fair, wrote:

“In my curatorial capacity I have for over a decade been responsible for numerous fairs, exhibitions and installations, and as such am expected to continually seek out the best and brightest talent within the contemporary art world. I can say without question that Siris Hill comfortably sits within the upper echelons of that talent, and possesses remarkable ability married with pioneering artistic ideas and integrity. It is rare to find an artist not only capable of painting at quite such a high level, but able to put that talent to use within original ideas and a fresh take on well-loved techniques. His work tackles concepts and challenges of mental health head-on, retaining substance and purpose, not an easy feat to accomplish.”

The Fairhurst Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition by Norwich-based artist Siris Hill whose creative practice is centred around Renaissance and Baroque inspired figurative painting. Hill is a digital fine artist, replicating the textures and movement of oil and acrylic paint with astonishing skill. His work explores the effects of mental illness, focusing on the struggle of perception, he depicts the beauty of individuality.

Hill’s emotive portraiture explores the effects that psychological conditions have on an individual, his works reflecting his own realities of living with mental illness as he investigates the social obstructions and loss of identity it creates. Unable to work around the fumes of oil paint, he has instead undertaken digital painting techniques to demonstrate a mastery of techniques of 17th-century artists.

Hill started struggling with his mental health as a teenager, and subsequently found himself living on the streets. Despite extremely challenging circumstances he completed a BA Fine Arts degree at Norwich University of the Arts and has since curated an exhibition for Rethink Mental Illness in Norwich called ‘Art of the Mind’ at the Forum. This provided an opportunity for artists to share their work with the public and open a positive conversation around mental health.

Director of the Fairhurst Gallery, Dulcie Humphrey, states: “Siris’ work has something incredibly seductive about it. On a technical level it opens up an interesting conversation about painting as a digital medium. With titans of the process such as David Hockney embracing digital media as a way of working is this the direction painting is going into the future? The juxtaposing of Siris’ modern techniques depicting subjects seeped in old master references makes the final results even more intriguing