Hillary Wood

Individual

Roles

Artist, Curator

Roles at grunt

Founder (1984), Curator, Administrative Assistant, Board Member

Biography

Hillary Wood was one of the founding members of grunt, where she worked as an artist, curator, collective member, administrator, bookkeeper, board member, and editor for over 36 years. She was a strong and thoughtful voice on the curatorial committee and organized large group exhibitions early on that were accessible to many emerging artists. With her partner Aiyyana Maracle, she produced a series of events based on gardens, herbs, tinctures, and foods. In the 1980s and early 90s, Wood painted a series of egg tempera paintings of Vancouver alley scenes that she set into heritage window frames. These works were incredibly time consuming to produce; the fast drying paint mixed with egg yolk in small batches and painstakingly applied in layers producing paintings of amazing detail and transparency of light. Eventually the work was too hard on her eyes to continue, but that love of process was a hallmark in almost all of Wood’s work. She and Bill Rennie would talk about “the love of mindless detail,” how you can lose yourself in the details of an artwork, and the pleasure derived from it. More recently, the CORE Artist Housing Co-op became a big part of Hillary’s life, where she worked diligently on the membership committee, corresponding with other artists in need of secure housing, production space, and community.

Adapted from grunt gallery, 2023

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive (Artist)
grunt gallery Programming Archive (Curator)

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