Tim Hull exhibits Egyptian-inspired art

Local artist finds meaning in the mysteries of the ancient world, by Vicki Botta Local artist Tim Hull, 28, and a Warwick High School graduate has a major exhibit at Freight and Volume, a prestigious art gallery on 24th Street in Manhattan from Sept. 8 through October 13. The exhibit entitled “The Major Swarm of Meanings Surrounding the Ancient Pyramids” is a compilation of serious and humorous pieces of artwork with an Egyptian theme. In his own words, “This particular body of work casts its eye on the Western fascination with the mysteries of Egypt.” He says that since that from the Age of Enlightenment to the present day, the West has sought after the unknowable, esoteric and sacred aspects of Egypt. “Artifacts, cryptic motifs and geometry are hallmarks of what we understand to be Egyptian. Pictorial flatness, immediacy of imagery, and symbology are visual cues we recognize as seminal Egyptian developments. Western archeologists and sundry men of adventure have sought to understand the modern world, vis-à-vis the ancient, through rummaging about the Nile valley.” Last year he had his first solo exhibition at a small gallery called the Kalus von Nichtssagend Gallery in Brooklyn and by luck another small gallery in Manhattan picked his exhibit up. According to Tim, this small gallery he is working with now is on the most important street for art in the world. “24th street is where the major, major galleries are who deal in works priced in the millions of dollars and the little gallery I work with is on the ground floor right there with the big boys, so this show that I have up right now is about as high profile as it gets.” He describes this as “a seriously lucky opportunity.” He says, “I am so thankful for it because only a few short years ago I was a fresh faced MFA graduate student at the Parsons School of Design and only distantly dreaming about doing what I’m doing now.” Tim first became interested in the mysteries and esotericism of Egypt from a project he was working on about the Russian mystic, G.I. Gurdjieff after he graduated with his MFA from Parsons School of Design. While working on drawings, paintings and other works of art based around him, he was constantly referred to ancient Egypt. He says that Gurdjieff often spoke about how Egypt was the cradle of knowledge and the repository of ancient, lost wisdom. When he began looking closer into this subject, he was mostly fascinated with the birth of Egyptology as a science “in that it codifies, quantifies and qualifies history, objects and artifacts from a particular culture” and the implications therein. He was also interested in Egypt simply as a motif or an idea more so than a place. “No one has to venture to Egypt to grasp its monumentality or importance. Egyptian style and design has been repeatedly appropriated for the past 200 years in the western world, and even back to the Roman Empire. Even the Romans were mystified by the Egyptian art and culture.” Therefore this exhibit is about these themes. It is still light hearted, with drawings, paintings and sculptures that do not necessarily take themselves so seriously. There is an element of humor underneath a sophisticated sheath. “I think the most humorous aspect is the use of souvenir statues to evoke consumerism and minimalism; also the use of feet from the statues,” says Tim. Tim said that he had always been doing some sort of art thing. However, while attending Warwick High School, he found the art teachers there very “smothering”. In his words, he says, “I was constantly kicked out of art class. I had very defined ideas about art even then, and teachers hated it, so I was literally made to switch multiple art classes. Learning art at Warwick turned me off from being an artist for a few years. It wasn’t until NYU that I realized that I could make art in any manner I chose. Before returning to art, Tim says, “I was totally interested in continental/post enlightenment philosophy; very heady stuff.” Tim says that he drew some of his inspiration for becoming an artist from his grandfathers. One grandfather was an artist, a painter and the other grandfather an architect. While he was always allowed to do creative things he says there wasn’t any one thing inspired me to become an artist. “I think I always just was.” Tim works in any type of medium that best expresses whatever idea he has. While he believes that he has had some luck getting this opportunity, it is mostly hard work. “I worked on my art probably an average of 12 hours a day while in school. It’s also being nice to people, being sincere about what you’re doing, meeting people, networking, being involved and knowledgeable about things in art and simply knowing how you fit into the larger dialogue about art and best expressing that.. Though Parsons offered him a platform, to actually get the exhibits, he says, ”I had to make that happen on my own.” His advice to other budding artists, “you really have to work hard and know what’s going on. (in the art world and in the larger world). It is important to try to express through art, your personal ideas or worldview, and if it’s compelling it will draw people to it. Find what you do best and do it, exploit it wisely.” When asked where he sees himself going from here, he says, “hopefully onward and upward!” When asked what other things interest him besides Egyptology or motifs in his art, he says, “ I am not so much interested in Egypt per se, but history in general, expressing history and ideas about it through art works.” His other interests include poetry, cocktail hour, cars, trees, boats, the lottery and music. Tim has been living on and off in NYC since 2000 and lived in Italy for a few years in between, before graduate school. He was studying, and then working for NYU in Florence. His family is “amazingly” supportive. “I wouldn’t be doing any of this without them.” He says that he never took lessons privately and while he used to exhibit a lot in Warwick, he says it was “nothing too rigorous or strange, mostly very simple, sellable stuff like paintings of flowers or such, but my hometown was very supportive of me early on, and they still are. At my most recent show in New York, a lot of Warwick people came out to the opening reception. That was really great.” The gallery is at 542 W. 24th Street, New York, New York. www.fridaynotes.com