Hilary Doyle (b. 1985, Worcester, MA) is an artist, teacher and curator whose practice spans painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Her iPhone drawing series contemplates the daily rituals of everyday life to explore psychology, gender, and emotion.
Growing up in the post-industrial city of Worcester, MA, Doyle recalls the dilapidation and unemployment that pervaded her hometown during its socio-economic downturn up until the 1990s. A subsequent move to New York City mirrored her encounters with “zoned-out people caught up in the daily grind, staring with purple rings under their glassy eyes”. Public spaces such as the subway, waiting rooms, and nature became stages upon which Doyle observes quiet, private moments and passers-by. Doyle’s meditation on these shared experiences and the conditions in which people live – however seemingly ordinary or banal – allows for greater emotional introspection on universal experiences we all share.
Doyle considers these transitory ‘in-between’ moments in daily life as studio time, producing sketches, iPhone drawings, videos, and sculptural models that later inform her paintings. This ongoing series of digital drawings brings together a decade’s worth of small observations and moments of quiet contemplation, captured spontaneously whilst on the move on trains, planes, car rides or during pauses waiting in queues, or on walks around parks and museums. Modest in subject yet expressive in colour and mark-making, Doyle’s iPhone drawings are about seeing and being present in the vivid hues and emotions hidden in each in-between moment of our everyday lives. She states:
“These iPhone drawings document a range of settings from observation. Many were made on the subway, train or carpool commuting to teach at Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University and Purchase college. Other works depicting landscapes or interiors mainly depict trips to Peaks Island, Maine, Airbnbs, and skies in Italy or France.”
This series is being released in two parts in 2022; with the first set of 18 limited edition prints launching publicly on Wednesday 13 July, and the second set coming later the same year.
Hilary Doyle currently lives and works in Worcester, MA. She has recently exhibited at spaces such as Taymour Grahne Projects (London), Hesse Flatow (NYC), Gallery Func (Shanghai), Public Swim (NYC), and Monya Rowe Gallery (NYC). She has had solo shows at One River School (NJ), The Active Space (NYC) and Brown University (RI). Her works are included in the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection and have received press coverage in Hyperallergic, Bushwick Daily, and New American Paintings Blog. Doyle is part time faculty at Rhode Island School of Design and co-founded NYC Crit Club with co-director Catherine Haggarty. She is also a gallery co-director at Transmitter Gallery.