Alouette Hill

My work is influenced by the visual languages of vernacular English popular arts. These are accessible and traditional forms that are at once remnants of a world that is passing and becoming engulfed by globalisation, as well as being resistant by their very nature and origin. My recent work has been motivated by the cynicism inherent in neoliberal politics and the strategic concealment of this through a use of the façade. Some may refer to this as false news and post-truth, others may recognise it as something that has been in operation much longer.

My research is focused on Thatcher's Britain and, using the realms of theatrical scenery and home decoration to discuss these issues, I explore the reverberations of this aspirational era. For example, the use of paint effects common in 1980s DIY such as wood-graining stands in as a metaphor for the manoeuvrings in politics and commerce given its purpose as an affectation of value. This trope has found a way for itself into my most recent works, whereby paint effects take on a humorous role, and act as a bridge between a second and third dimension in the otherwise flat surface of a painting.    

The series of oil paintings on paper confront the naming of places – they are a fearsome, eerie, mysterious, and idiosyncratic collection of signs for room names in a guest-house – and reference the illustrative vocabulary of the pub sign.

A display of works are presented that build on a wry sense of humour, as well as a hope for an uncorrupted spirit to prevail, and this is emphasised through the collection of obsessively made plaster relief ‘heads’, which amass and add to the overall texture of ‘outsider Englishness’ – a concept we are facing quite literally in the current political climate as Britain finds its departure from the European Union.

Above all I aim for my work to be sincere in outlook and resistant in its spirit.