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Amy Hill and I have known each other for a long time, but like with so many artists, we mostly see each other circulating at openings. We use the occasion of her 3rd solo show at Front Room Gallery-https://www.frontroomles.com/ \u2014 open until Oct. 21 to sit down together in the RFB studio. It was particularly lovely to be able to sit down with her and grill her about whatever I was interested in knowing about her. She is a charming sport! See more of her incredible work HERE: http://www.amyhillpaintings.com/\n\nSo much to uncover about Amy \u2014 her childhood \u2014 her creative, intelligent family \u2014 scientist dad, artsy mom, talented sibling. Everyone had drawing talent. Amy's drawing talent and consistent hard work has definitely been the compass in her life and has opened more doors for her than she will likely admit to \u2014 she's way too modest:))Her stories about her early artist years in the lower east side stick in my head. Eventually she and I get to talking about how people have said she and I look alike, which inevitably lead to me asking about how is it that she is so thin! I am relatively thin but Amy is thinner! Amy just eats and doesn't gain wait\u2014I am envious!\n\n\n\nMore about Amy and her work:\nThe Front Room Gallery is proud to present: \u201cBack to Nature\u201d a solo exhibition of new paintings by Amy Hill. This is the artist's third solo show at the gallery. \n \nAmy Hill\u2019s artistic career and developed style have been cultivated through her intense investigations of art historical references. Through portraiture, she relates common circumstances within cross relationships in time. The paintings in \u201cBack to Nature\u201d address not only the culture of the 1960\u2019s, but the fashion and political climate, the anxiety over the Vietnam War and the peace movement.\nThrough comparative structures and subjects, Hill has masterfully relayed a parallel association of 19th century American folk art painting to 1960s era counterculture in the United States. Very much akin to the directive of the historical portraits she is referencing, Hill\u2019s paintings reveal much about ordinary people: how they lived, what they valued, and how they wished to be remembered. The paintings in this exhibition echo today\u2019s movement towards sustainable living as well as the back to land movement of the 1960s and 70s.\n"The worldly life has been rejected by peoples as far back as the Sadhu of India and the Ancient Greeks, so ours isn\u2019t the first culture to inspire a yearning for simpler times. In my paintings I try to create a more natural world. I draw on early American and 15th century Renaissance portraits where subjects are portrayed in naive or awkward poses with inaccurate anatomy against a landscape of questionable perspective. I dress my subjects in the clothing of the late 1960s, \u201chippy\u201d fashion, when care for the environment, anti-consumerism, \u201cflower power\u201d and the desire for love and peace prevailed, a time essential in forming my own attitudes towards life." - Amy Hill\nAmy Hill is a New York based artist who received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and also studied at New York University. She has received grants from the Peter S. Reed Foundation and Art Matters, a studio grant from the Elizabeth Foundation, and nominations for the Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting and for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the Purchase Award from West Publishing Company, the Juror Award from the NYU Small Works Show and an honorable mention from the National Arts Club. Hill has exhibited both nationally and Internationally. Her work has been extensively reviewed in such publications as Harper\u2019s Magazine, Artnet Magazine and the New York Times.