ARTIST TALK: EJ HILL

EJ Hill (b. 1985, Los Angeles, CA) is an artist whose practice incorporates painting, writing, installation, and performance as a way to elevate bodies and amplify voices that have long been rendered invisible and inaudible by oppressive social structures. This multifaceted approach stems from an endurance-based performance practice that pushes his physical and mental limits in order to expand the conditions, parameters, and possibilities that determine a body.

His work has been presented in both national and international exhibitions including Rendez-vous/14th Lyon Biennale, Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, France (2017); Artists of Color, The Underground Museum, Los Angeles (2017); Future Generation Art Prize, 57th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2017); The Necessary Reconditioning of the Highly Deserving, Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles (2017); and Tenses: Artists in Residence 2015-16, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2016).

Hill has received several honors and awards including an Art Matters Grant, Art Matters Foundation, New York (2017); The William H. Johnson Prize, William H. Johnson Foundation for the Arts, Los Angeles (2016); and a Fellowship for Visual Artists from the California Community Foundation, Los Angeles (2015). He was shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize, Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Kyiv (2017) and was an Artist-in-Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015-16).

Hill received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles (2013) and a BFA from Columbia College Chicago (2011).