Abstract Art with Andrew Hillhouse
Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder – there’s no right or wrong way to interpret it… Jodie Cameron discovers a local artist enticing you to look deeper, beyond the canvas.
A naturally creative soul, Andrew Hillhouse has been a household name in Noosa for more than 30 years – his impressive career in architecture setting the stage for his foray into the world of abstract impressionism that quite literally stops you in your tracks.
Finally succumbing to the pull of the paintbrush and two decades on from his first solo exhibition at Noosa Regional Gallery, Andrew’s unique creativity will once again be on display at his solo exhibition On the Nature of Daylight at Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre.
Andrew’s gentle disposition is humbling, and there’s a similar softness to his art that holds your gaze, while your eyes simultaneously scan the textured scenes for commonalities – evoking an understanding of Andrew’s deep connection to nature and his appreciation of the world around him.
“That 20 years sure has flown by,” Andrew says. “But my process for On the Nature of Daylight has been very similar – the works are textured acrylic paint applied with a palette knife, but the application process has been much looser, with a different energy; maybe I am just older and wiser,” he chuckles.
On the Nature of Daylight will feature acrylic paint on canvas and poly cotton, with each painting an abstract colour field suggestive of a scene, landscape or fragment of a story recalled from memory, and imagined or partially remembered, and sometimes forgotten.
“There’s more energetic and intense colours in this collection, whereas earlier paintings have been more meditative,” he said. “In the piece, The Last Day of Summer, I have been experimenting with thicker and bolder marks.”
Each painting is illuminated by light captured at various times of the day, and while abstract impressionism is Andrew’s forte, his distinct style uses memory recall to represent the intricate layers of life, with an overall intent to immerse the viewer in his world of recollection.
“Your memory isn’t always as accurate as a realistic photograph, but the elements of direction and orientation can still provide perspective, and have you appreciating the world around you without even realising it,” he says.
“I largely use a palette knife because it allows me to mix and move the paint at the same time as layering it, from one place to another – building depth, but sometimes there are happy accidents where things that might not plan to mix together, mix and create another colour or a shade.”
Quite often when Andrew is painting, the less intense colours that are underneath start to poke through, like the blue sky – often giving clues that it is a landscape, and to provide orientation of direction or basic perceptions of what is up or down; or water or sand.
As he prepares his latest collection, a recent trip to Arkaroola in the Flinders Ranges, 10 hours north of Adelaide, provided an immersion into the unique Australian arid landscape, leaving a lasting impression on Andrew.
“The daily solace of life, ideas and observations can dawn on me while I am painting, and send me on a slightly different course to what I had originally envisaged,” he says. “But there is so much beauty in the unravelling of subliminal intuition too. Your subconscious mind does a lot of work at night, processing your day while you sleep, and it’s a big part of an artists’ process. It’s a huge part of mine because sometimes it feels like there is a connection to another source, an art stroke in a way that just comes through, and free flows from somewhere deep in the memory of the mind.”
So why does an artist decide to exhibit solo?
Andrew says if you have a number of elements that interact with each other, it’s an opportunity to rearrange or curate your ideas differently.
“It can be a story about one theme or you can move just one of the pieces, and it can alter the theme or create an entirely new direction,” he says.
“Curating a solo exhibition is good practice to make you more observant, and there’s also an opportunity to show up to 20 pieces instead of three. The pieces can be curated to show the relationships between them and the evolution and development of ideas.
“It also means I can include some larger paintings too, which I enjoy.”
Inspired by impressionist artists who use light to allude, Andrew enjoys challenging his mind by combining two images or objects, then holding those two opposing ideas at the same time – becoming a juxtaposition of the mind to move from one to the other until they correlate.
“This allows people to interpret art in their own way and highlights the difference between abstract art and realistic art,” Andrew says. “Your brain will try to make sense of abstract art, and whether you like it or not, sometimes it doesn’t work, the brain doesn’t want to make sense of it. It’s fascinating to hear feedback about what the viewer sees and often people are worried they are going to get it wrong, but what you see is what you see; there is no right or wrong answer.”
Head along to the Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre this June to see Andrew’s abstract immersion of memory up close and personal!
ABSTRACTION IMMERSION
On the Nature of Daylight
Solo exhibition by Andrew Hillhouse.
Butter Factory Arts Centre, 11A Maple Street, Cooroy.
26 June-27 July 2025. Opening night Friday 27 June.
To find out more and view Andrew’s work, follow his artistic journey @andrewhillhouseart
