Today we’d like to introduce you to Hilary Tait Norod.
Hilary graduated Skidmore College with a BS in Studio Art in 2009, receiving the Jesse Soloman Award for most Outstanding Painting. Awarded the Presidential Scholarship at Lesley University, she will be receiving her MFA in Visual Art in June 2018.
Currently, represented at Webster Company, Boston and Gallery ZG04, Los Angeles, she has also shown at Gallery 315, New York, The Distillery Gallery, Boston, and The Warwick Museum, Rhode Island.
Hilary’s current body of work is autobiographical in nature, reflecting internal conversations, especially ones involving love and intimacy. By dismantling and reassembling domestic objects and imagery, she explores themes of love, loss and contradiction through aspects of material manipulation of paint, architectural scraps, plaster, bedsheets, furniture and other mixed media. Notions of the familiar and the domestic serve as a confessional offering, interrogating the architecture of the psyche and the home. Translating personal sensibilities and cultural frictions, the investigation is feminist, provisional and intuitive.
As an active participate in the local Boston arts community, Norod is a strong advocate for the education and development of artists’ careers in addition to contributing to the growth of the arts network.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I am both an oil painter and sculptural artist. Working with paint I continuously layer over, cover up, wipe out, and repeat until the work finds a type of emotional integrity. This improvised process is married with tight line work and bold gestural brush strokes that are repeatedly interrupted with text. Words are scrawled across the surface; they dissect the composition and reflect inner thoughts that capture fleeting emotional perspectives. My sculptural work involves binding materials, discovering pressure points and fixing familiar objects together in unexpected ways. The combined elements congregate aesthetically, become confrontational and navigate various aspects of our minds. The current work straddles hemispheres of whimsy and the grotesque. During the making process my mind is focused on personal relationships with love, love/loss, domesticity, marriage and mental illness and how my ideas on such topics have been influenced by personal, cultural and familial circumstances.
Emotions within the work are in continuous flux, they haunt and facilitate all aspects of home, comfort, fear, happiness and love. The work is not feminist — it is a champion of feminism. The artwork is giving a variety of perspectives of human qualities. A personality takes on many forms and many directions while still being us. We are a process.
Any advice for aspiring or new artists?
Keep making! A painter is not a painter unless they paint. Trust your hand.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I try to keep up with my online presence and portfolio as much as possible. You can find my work on my personal site and follow my studio habits with progress shots and current inspirations on Instagram. Please follow me @hilary_tait
To see the breath of artists that Galatea Fine Art represents please see our website at www.galateafineart.com and follow us @galateafineart.
Our gallery is also open Wed – Sunday 12:00 – 5:00pm at 460B Harrison Ave, Boston in the South End, SoWA Arts District. We change our exhibitions on a monthly basis and offer Opening Receptions on the First Friday of every month!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hilarytaitnorod.com
- Email: hilarytaitnorod@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/hilary_tait
Image Credit:
Mark Tewies
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