Hillary Slater

Neuroscience major, Studio Art minor

My paintings of the past are tinged with anxiety about the future; I paint my memories with equally intense fear of letting them go in order to move forward and despair for losing them forever. Painting, for me, is an attempt to solidify my memories while they're slipping away. Although I think forgetting is both good and necessary for people in general, I am intensely uncomfortable with losing my own memories. This discomfort fuels paintings that are meant to feel comfortable, complete, and still, despite representing the chaotic connections within the brain that truly comprise a memory. I think of my paintings as an external hard drive on which I store the memories that amount to my core beliefs about who I am and why.

I Wasn't Supposed to Be Here

oil paint, ink, mixed media

In light of the global pandemic, my work is perhaps tinged more with anxiety about my future. After experiencing displacement for the first time in my life, I shifted my attention to space, asking the questions: Is the digital space in which I now live real? What is my place in the space around me? How do I manufacture a space for myself? In the same way that I paint my memories, I work my experience into the material world through a daily practice of photography, drawing, and collage.

There are three sequences of images below: the studio sequence, the polaroids sequence, and the drawings sequence. Please click the images to be taken to each section.

<< previous artist |  back to HEREthere |  next artist >>