Claiming the Time In Between-Making Every Day a Studio Day with Artist Hilary Doyle

The time in between is something we all deal with in life. The time between waking and coffee, the time between arriving in a doctor’s office and waiting to be seen, the time spent in transportation going from one point to the next. Hilary Doyle took that time and claimed it not only as studio time, but it became a jumping off point for her recent work.

Hilary Doyle is an artist, teacher, curator and gallery co-director. Doyle’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture about gender, class and psychology. She is newly represented by Taymour Grahne Gallery in london. Recent solo shows include “Metropolis” with Taymour Grahne online in august 2020, as well as “Echoing Voices” at One River School in November 2019. Her work has received press coverage in Hyperallergic, Bushwick Daily, and New American Paintings Blog.

Doyle is faculty at Rhode Island School of Design. She has taught for the last 8 years at various schools including Purchase College and a three year appointment with Brown University.

Doyle founded and co-directs NYC Crit Club with co-director Catherine Haggarty which was just included in observer magazines Arts Power 50: Change makers in the art world. She is also a gallery Co-Director and curator at Transmitter gallery in Brooklyn.

Doyle received an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has an upcoming group show with Taymour Grahne Projects Contemporary Domesticity and Solo Show there in 2022. She also has an upcoming group show “The Symobolists: Les Fleurs du mal (the flowers of Evil)” at Hesse Flatow in Chelsea in February.

“Worcester, MA, where I grew up is one of many downtrodden, post-industrial cities across the US, filled with dilapidated factory buildings, joblessness, and overgrown yards. In cities everywhere people travel through similarly distressed spaces daily: the streets and subways full of zoned-out people caught up in the daily grind, staring with purple rings under their glassy eyes. This work examines contemporary working-class life. Focusing on the conditions in which people live helps us examine the rituals, psychology and emotions of daily life.

The work starts with mundane moments observed while commuting or while at home: a man staring at his phone while laying in bed or a woman balances on a yoga ball holding a baby. From these moments I make sketches, videos, iPhone drawings, or sculptural models to inform drawings and paintings. I experiment to discover relevant marks for each subject: a quick mark for the view out a window of a speeding bus, or a slick mark for tiles on the wall of a subway station.

Strangers, although unknown to us, are always leaving evidence about themselves as we catch a glimpse of them. People reveal their disposition in their folded arms, baby carts, laughing eyes, tightly clutched bags, or work uniforms. These clues spark imaginary narratives about peoples lives in each work. To examine fragments of people's lives, brings attention to the joys and struggles of ourselves and others.

Since the pandemic the work has become more imaginative and symbolic - using paintings within paintings to talk about the subjects within them. In our new surreal pandemic era fiction has become reality.”- HD

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

-Claiming “in between time” as your studio time

-Tips on Monotype Printmaking

-Printing at home

-Not wasting materials by planning ahead

-Using digital mediums

-Guerra

-Consider everyday a studio day

-Make art at any moment

-Working while breastfeeding

-Try not to go a single day without being creative, even if it’s just thinking

-Becoming more inventive

-Becoming more fearless after becoming a mother

-NYC Crit Club

-Transmitter Gallery

-”Stack your life”

-Having a routine

Artist Shout Outs:

Thank you to friends who do text critiques with me over the years

Catherine Haggarty, Claudia Bitran, Francisco Moreno and Meredith Iszlai.

LINKS:

HilaryDoyle.com

Represented by Taymour Grahne Projects in London

Recent solo shows include “Metropolis” with Taymour Grahne online in august 2020, as well as “Echoing Voices” at One River School in November 2019.

She has an upcoming group show with Taymour Grahne Projects Contemporary Domesticity and Solo Show there in 2022. She also has an upcoming group show “The Symobolists: Les Fleurs du mal (the flowers of Evil)” at Hesse Flatow in Chelsea in February.