“Focusing on the conditions in which people live helps us examine the rituals, psychology and emotions of daily life… Strangers, although unknown to us, are always leaving evidence about themselves as we catch a glimpse of them. People reveal their disposition in their folded arms, baby carts, laughing eyes, tightly clutched bags, or work uniforms. To examine fragments of people’s lives, brings attention to the joys and struggles of others.”
Hilary Doyle (b.1985, Worcester, MA) is an artist, teacher and curator whose practice spans painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Her iPhone drawing series contemplates the daily rituals of everyday life to explore psychology, gender, and emotion.
Growing up in the post-industrial city of Worcester, MA, Doyle recalls the dilapidation and unemployment that pervaded her hometown during its socio-economic downturn up until the 1990s. A subsequent move to New York City mirrored her encounters with “zoned-out people caught up in the daily grind, staring with purple rings under their glassy eyes”. Public spaces such as the subway, waiting rooms, and nature became stages upon which Doyle observes quiet, private moments and passers-by. Doyle’s meditation on these shared experiences and the conditions in which people live – however seemingly ordinary or banal – allows for greater emotional introspection on universal experiences we all share.
Doyle considers these transitory ‘in-between’ moments in daily life as studio time, producing sketches, iPhone drawings, videos, and sculptural models that later inform her paintings. Though her arsenal for artistic expression is diverse, Doyle’s work is tied together by a strong sense of confident, fluid mark-making and simplified, rounded forms. She states: “I experiment to discover relevant marks for each subject: a quick mark for the view out a window of a speeding bus, or a flat mark for tiles on the wall of a subway station.”
Hilary Doyle currently lives and works in Worcester, MA. She has recently exhibited at spaces such as Taymour Grahne Projects (London), Hesse Flatow (NYC), Gallery Func (Shanghai), Public Swim (NYC), and Monya Rowe Gallery (NYC). She has had solo shows at One River School (NJ), The Active Space (NYC) and Brown University (RI). Her works are included in the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection and have received press coverage in Hyperallergic, Bushwick Daily, and New American Paintings Blog. Doyle is part time faculty at Rhode Island School of Design and co-founded NYC Crit Club with co-director Catherine Haggarty. She is also a gallery co-director at Transmitter Gallery.
SELECTED Press
I Like Your Work Podcast, 2021
