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Wherever we will to root:

Los Angeles-based artist EJ Hill is best known for his rigorous, embodied and durational performances and his exploration of the social construction of identity. This exhibition is the culmination of Hill’s term as the 2021 Wanlass Artist in Residence at OXY ARTS, where he worked collaboratively with his students to unravel and unlearn entrenched ideologies.

This unlearning also takes place in the exhibition, where Hill explores the versatility of his practice freely and unapologetically, insisting that it can and will foreground joy. In this series of new works, Hill departs from his physical practice to access his passion for painting; reframing the painting process as the work itself—in this case the work of care, a therapeutic mechanism for healing, rehabilitation, and even refusal.

Wherever we will to root acts as the pendulum swing to Hill’s physically demanding performances. Right here, the paintings seem to say—in the restful hues of roses and daffodils and daisies—is the place where we bloom, where the body is not tested but nursed back to equanimity. The exhibition invites the viewer to witness the physical evidence of Hill’s process and join in the necessary act of resting, resetting, and finding balance and beauty.

From https://www.ejhill.info/work/wherever-we-will-to-root. 

EJ Hill 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 often stems from an endurance-based performance practice in which Hill pushes his physical and mental limits as a way to expand the conditions, parameters, and possibilities that determine a body.

After receiving his FCA support, Hill presented Excellentia, Mollitia, Victoria at the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. 2018 biennial, in which he stood unmoving on a plinth in the gallery for the duration of the exhibition. In 2018 Hill also received an Artadia Award, as well as support from the Joan Mitchell Foundation.

Hill’s work has been presented domestically and internationally in 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 and Council, Los Angeles (2017); and Tenses: Artists in Residence 2015-16, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2016).

Hill is the recipient of an Art Matters Foundation Award (2017); The William H. Johnson Prize (2016); and a Fellowship for Visual Artists from the California Community Foundation (2015). He was shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation (2017), and was an Artist-in-Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2015-16). Hill received an M.F.A. from University of California, Los Angeles (2013) and a B.F.A. from Columbia College Chicago (2011).

Paul Holdengräber is an interviewer and curator of public curiosity. He is the Founder and Director of Onassis LA (OLA), a center for dialogue. Previously he was the Founder and Director of LIVE from the NYPL, a cultural series at the New York Public Library, where he hosted over 600 events, holding conversations with everyone from Patti Smith to Zadie Smith, Ricky Jay to Jay-Z, Errol Morris to Jan Morris, Wes Anderson to Helen Mirren, Christopher Hitchens to Mike Tyson. He is the host of “A Phone Call From Paul,” a podcast for The Literary Hub. 

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