David Hillhouse

Art & Design

Curriculum Vitae

Background - Techniques - Allotments - Commissions - Timeline

Background

David Hillhouse was born in 1945 on the Wirral Peninsula which lies between the River Dee and the River Mersey in the north west of England near the border with Wales. His paintings include subjects from all over Great Britain although the majority of them are drawn from Welsh and English landscapes and traditional farm buildings. He visited New Mexico and Arizona in 1995 and produced several paintings of the desert, as well as traditional North American farm buildings.

He was educated on Wirral and studied art at the Laird School of Art, Liverpool College of Art and Liverpool and Leicester Universities. After teaching for several years he moved into the museum profession - first as a technician, then teacher and later as a curator. David Hillhouse was, until 2000, Principal Museums Officer for Wirral and was responsible for gallery and museum locations on the peninsula. He is an honorary member of the Royal Cambrian Academy (former Vice-President and Acting President), Chairman, and now treasurer of the Wirral Society of Arts, a member of various other local societies and a prize-winner of the Royal West of English Academy, the Wirral Spring Art Exhibition and recently gained first prize in the Grosvenor Museum's 5th Open Art Exhibition. His paintings are included in numerous private and gallery collections.

Techniques

The artist's interest in landscape focuses upon the evidence of human presence, although people are rarely shown in the paintings. The buildings and the machinery which have been used in shaping our environment leave their marks on landscape and buildings, and the slow wear of windows, doors, tools and modes of transport. Many of his paintings focus upon details, with close ups of small sections of the subject. Traditional farming methods have a harmony which modern developments lack. Many of these traditional farm buildings are disappearing at an alarming rate. David has documented many of these in Cheshire without realising this aspect of the work was of significance.

Interest in the traditional is mirrored in the artist's technique, for David paints in water colour but also in the more painstaking method of egg tempera on gesso panel. This utilises a process in which the artist "makes" the painting in every sense of the word. The panel itself has layers of gesso (a type of plaster) which creates a superb absorbent and smooth surface for the thin layers of paint to follow. The pure pigment - David uses a limited range of the most permanent and natural earth based colours - is mixed with the yoke of an egg to form an emulsion. The water content evaporates to form an oil based medium. The purity and intensity of colour allows the subtlest of graduations and textures. In addition the artist rarely uses white on his palette, and this allows the brilliant white of the gesso to shine through the paint layer, rather like a stained glass window or the purest of water-colours.

Allotments

A recent interest has been the small private gardens which are normally 30 foot wide and 90 foot long, and in England are called allotments. These are provided by the local authorities to people who wish to rent the land for growing vegetables and plants. They can be found in most villages, cities and towns and are often tucked away on pieces of ground that might not be otherwise used - next to railway tracks, behind housing developments etc. To quote the artist -

"Allotments are interesting because they are one of the few places left that are divorced from the everyday preoccupation with our ever faster lifestyles. People on allotments improvise, their plots are the perfect place for recycling. Plot holders respect the privacy of the individual gardeners. They are each free to express their own approach to the way they tackle the same problems. Here a redundant loft water tank has been used to store water in the dry months of summer. There an old cast iron bath has been recomissioned for the same purpose. A thousand types of containers have been given new lives and a whole variety of architectural styles are given to a host of eccentric garden sheds. There is a wide selection of methods of training plants - wigwams, canes, old fencing, metal poles - anything that can be brought back into useful purpose with some ingenuity."

People express their own characteristics by the way they solve problems. There are the clever ones, beginners, the lazy, the ingenious, the organic, the systematic and the downright useless. An allotment planted in the summer will be different again in the winter when the hardier vegetables fight our harsher winters. It is an ever changing compendium of odd objects continually shuffled by their owners. They are a part of our society which survives, to the ignorance of the majority, which provide a whole lifestyle to those who enjoy them.

Gardeners come to terms with the seasons, and their time scales are therefore adapted. There is patience and tolerance which is enjoyed on most plots, a reluctance to criticise and an interest in others' methods. Not that competiton is absent . Those who see themselves as potential prize winners will work determinedly towards that goal, while lesser mortals lock on with gentle interest.

Our landscape would be poorer without allotments. Their disappearance would be a sad reflection on the pressures put on them by the need to capitalise on every square yard of property. They can be found in all parts of the country and worked by all sorts of people. They satisfy one of our most natural of urges - to provide for our families. Allotments are places of poetry and beauty - to those who can open their eyes to them."

The artist's paintings also have an abstract quality. Although they are painted figuartively, they can also be seen as a balance of form, mass, texture and colour. They seek a harmony which achieves permanence - peculiarly at odds with the nature of many of the transient subjects portrayed. The finished works are presented so that all of the painting can be seen, since so much thought has gone into the composition and the balances involved. Many of the paintings have an underlying theme of time and change - human priorities and values - and pose subtle questions to do with perceived "beauty" and the way our preconceptions can limit conceptions of what or isn't of value.

Comissions

David Hillhouse has recently completed a series of commissions for stained glass windows. These include a window to commemorate the English 1st World War poet Wilfred Owen, in Birkenhead Central Library. Others are installed in the oldest building on Merseyside, Birkenhead Priory, which honours the cadets of HMS Conway training ship. A recent addition is a window in a local church devoted to Our Lady Star of the Sea (Stella Maris), St. Winifride's Neston. To view examples of stained glass designs, visit the gallery section.

Recent commissions have included work for Liverpool John Moores University, the Friends of HMS Conway, Parity Computers, Wirral Methodist Housing and the National Acrylic Painter's Association (NAPA). David paints and designs full time but occasionally accepts commissions for museum based work.

Timeline

A Selection of notable positions, shows and awards.

Laird School of Art: (Foundation Course)

1964

Liverpool College of Art: (BA Art & Design)

1965 - 1968

Liverpool University: (Art Teachers Diploma)

1968 - 1969

Art Master: (Wirral Secondary Schools)

1969 - 1971

Art Lecturer: (Laird School Of Art)

1971 - 1973

Museum Curator: (Williamson Art Gallery & Museum)

1976 - 1990

Leicester Univeristy: (Museums Diploma)

1980 - 1982

Chairman Visual Arts Panel: (Merseyside Arts)

1982 - 1988

Development Officer: (Merseyside Exhibitions)

1981 - 1982

Elected Associate of The Royal Cambrian Academy

1986

Elected Academician of The Royal Cambrian Academy

1988

Elected Vice-President of the Royal Cambrian Academy

1992

Exhibition Consultant: Welsh Arts Council

1986 - 1988

Lecturer: Workers Education Authority

1980 - 1984

Prize Winner: Royal West of England Academy

1992

Principal Museums Officer: (Wirral Borough Council)

1991 - 2000

Elected Honorary Member of The Wirral Society of Arts

1996

Chairman of The Wirral Society of Arts

1999 - present

Self Employed Artist and Designer - Museum Consultant

2000 - present

 

 

SOLO SHOW - Townley Hall, Burnley

1988

 

 

GROUP SHOWS

 

 

 

Up the Garden Path

1988

Royal Cambrian Academy Exhibitions

1986 - present

Wirral Society of Arts

1980 - present

Artists of Wirral

 

Royal West of England Academy

 

(NAPA) - St. Ives and North Wales

 

Skipton Annual Exhibitions

 

John Entwistle's Gallery, Low Crag, Kendal

 

Davey's Gallery, Liverpool

 

Merseyside Artist's Exhibition