Past Exhibition
Allison and Josh Hill
ROGUE GOAT FOLK ART
Allison and Josh Hill
February 2016
Contemporary folk artists, Josh and Allison Hill, are partners in life and in the maker duo, Rogue Goat. Inspired by the many road trips they take across Canada, Rogue Goat creates ingeniously crafted landscapes in mixed media using acrylic, found metals and live-edge wood. Trees are painted to look as if they are sitting on top of the wood that forms the topography of the landscape and anchors its roots. By positioning the grain of the wood horizontally, they reproduce the strata found in soil and rock. Sometimes imagery such as mountains, glacial lakes, abandoned farms, or other signs of human existence punctuate the landscape. Painted in a dark hue and bordered by a paler shade, the doubling of the trees’ contours produces an ethereal effect enhanced by the blues, greens and grays of the mottled background. In some works, vibrant swaths of red are welcome gestures against the coolness of the muted skies.
Each work contains an exciting transition at the points where trees transform from painted object into negative space and become roots. Fractal-like patterns are carved into the wood following the grain, echoing the markings of wood-boring insects. By revealing “the seen and the unseen layers that compose the natural world and to allude to the life cycle of the wood itself,” Rogue Goat points to a holistic ecology where we are connected in nature through time, space and materiality.
Josh and Allison Hill live in Eugenia, Ontario. They are proud participants in the Canadian Maker movement. Their Rogue Goat Studio is located in nearby Markdale and open by appointment.
