2022
A sculpted hand holds a notebook, a hand based on the artist’s own appendage as he holds the notebook in contemplation. When thinking about creativity and the nature of actionable imagination, the hand becomes central as the conduit for creating. Taking this notion as a baseline, the image within the book steps further in this contemplation by depicting hands holding a bow and arrow on a broken shard of wood. Tools and weaponry are early forms of imagination, and creative thought turned into invention, but the question arises, who wields the power devised in creative invention? Who benefits, and what are the impacts and outcomes of such powerful acts?
Brooklyn, New York, USA, 1986. Mixed Media Artist.
Aaron Li-Hill is a Canadian/American visual artist based in Brooklyn who employs painting, illustration, stencilling, and sculptural elements within his art. With a background in graffiti and mural painting and a degree in Fine Arts, his works range from smaller multiples to enormous murals that explore industrialization, scientific breakthrough, man versus nature and information saturation. To create these complex images, Li-Hill draws from his mixed cultural background and blurs the lines between disparate methodologies and approaches such as graffiti, classical figurative painting, graphic design, sculpture, action painting, and found object assemblage. Through the storm of imagery and density, there is also a beauty that surfaces from this fragile balance. Li-Hill possesses a BFA from OCADU and has worked and shown in cities such as Melbourne, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berlin and Hong Kong. He has also had works displayed in major institutions such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Urban Nation Museum of Contemporary Art Berlin, the Portsmouth Museum of Art in New Hampshire and the CCCC Museum in Valencia.
