Craig Hill’s series “Creativity is the Enemy” is currently at the SOO Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis, where I saw his work and bought a mixed-media piece from the series. Craig uses a wide-range of iconography from American pop culture, exploring the great media machine and its outdated gender typing, all with a big dollop of irony.
What attracted me to Craig’s work was how stripped down and honest it is. His work draws question to the everyday symbols and iconography that don’t even make us blink. Hill’s paintings hit me in the gut, making me feel like a sucker for all too eagerly submitting to the media of the “least common denominator” (People Magazine anyone?). Hill’s work definitely serves the artistic purpose of encouraging us to reevaluate our relationship with images, evoking us to look a bit closer…
The piece I purchased is Untitled but I’ve been calling it “Dots” referencing the iconic candy Hill includes in the piece and plays off of in the connect-the-dots flower in the forefront. I hung the painting off-center below a bright orange mirror. The painting, despite its size, definitely holds its own!
