Dil Hildebrand: Lorem Ipsum

C24 Gallery is pleased to present Lorem Ipsum, an exhibition of new paintings by Canadian artist Dil Hildebrand. This will be Dil Hildebrand’s first solo exhibition in New York. Lorem Ipsum will showcase paintings and collage that highlight the artist's distinctive working process in which he examines space and surface. The exhibition will be on view May 2 - June 30, 2017 with an Opening Reception on Tuesday, May 2 from 6 - 8pm.

Dil Hildebrand's new body of work focuses on spatial concepts of design, the construction of image, and the mechanics of representation in art. His work is informed and influenced by a diversity of references and methods, including modernist strategies of fragmentation and re-composition, pictorial tropes of Western art and theatre, and post – modernist architecture. Layered panels follow a consistent color palette throughout the work, playing with distortion, and depth of field. In Lorem Ipsum, Hildebrand’s paintings deliberately move away from the austerity of the Cartesian aesthetic to create broader, stylistic movement in space, transcending two-dimensionality and blurring the lines between spatial representation and abstraction.

Drawing from experience in scenic painting for theatre, Hildebrand employs the techniques of illusion used in set design. In Lorem Ipsum, his highly stylized brush strokes mixed with collage and layering of acrylic panels, produce the experience of post-modern architectural form. Through the use of materials such as nylon flocking, which is a material commonly found in wallpaper, sand, resin and acrylic paint, the highly physical surfaces create a sense of deep pictorial space. The resulting images frame the body of the viewer in life-sized patterns that imitate the grandeur of structural design.

Frameworks and passageways are important motifs to Hildebrand’s work. Windows are leitmotifs of architectural patterning, ordering the way we think and move through the world; they represent the intersections of movement between states of being. Charged with neurosis and rich with history, the architectural image acts as both a map and a record of physical and psychological experience. In this way, the actual frame of Hildebrand’s paintings act as a window or portal. As if looking through a doorway, the eye rises and falls traveling through the bold shapes and colors of the panels. The result is a transcendent experience that both architectonic spaces and Hildebrand's paintings share: a compulsory recognition of the present.

Dil Hildebrand’s work has been shown internationally in such venues as The National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2010); the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2012); Herron Galleries at University of Indiana, Indianapolis (2013); Choi & Lager Gallery, Cologne (2013); Union Gallery, London UK (2012&13); University of Manitoba School of Art. Gallery, Winnipeg (2013); YYZ, Toronto (2011); Galerie de l’UQAM, Montreal (2013); Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2014); AUT University Gallery, Auckland NZ (2007); and Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto (2006).

Hildebrand is an MFA graduate of Concordia University, Montreal and has been awarded a number of distinguished grants and awards including the International Residency at Acme Studios, London UK (2013); the Canada Council for the Arts (2010); the Banff Centre Thematic Residency (2009); Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (2009) and was winner of the RBC Canadian Painting Competition (2006).

Major public institutions throughout Canada, including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée d’art contemporain De Montréal, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Bank of the Canada Council, have collected Hildbrand’s work. In 2017, he will present solo exhibitions at Plein Sud in Longueil, Quebec; McClure Gallery, Montreal; Centre Space, Toronto; and C24 Gallery, New York.