Artist Statement — Hilli le Roux
I paint in oil because it refuses to behave. I usually start with multi layers of acrylic as that creates the textured under-painting for me to create the desired effect.
My work is built through instinct, tension and release. I layer, scrape, dissolve, splatter and rebuild. Paint is applied with brushes, knives, cloth — sometimes straight from the tube — then partially removed with solvent to expose what lies beneath. I am as interested in erosion as I am in construction. The surface carries memory.
Each painting begins with a pulse — a colour combination that won’t leave my mind, a mood that insists on form. I may start on raw white canvas, or on a field of black, or on a dark teal bleeding into acid green. I don’t plan the outcome. I respond. The wrist moves, the paint runs, gravity collaborates.
Texture often becomes the protagonist. Colour shifts from supporting role to main actor. What begins as intention evolves into discovery. I stop the moment I fall in love.
Titles matter. They are not decorative; they are invitations. I want viewers to look — and then to see. To enter the work with their own questions. To find fragments of themselves in the layers. Pieces of an Enquiring Mind was not just six paintings — it was six states of consciousness forming a single conversation.
My practice is driven by restlessness. I cannot remain in comfort for long. The search for meaning — spiritual, emotional, intellectual — is ongoing. Painting is how I investigate that search. It is how I confront uncertainty, curiosity and the human need to understand.
Those who live with my work are not passive observers. They are participants in the enquiry.
And that dialogue — between surface and depth, artist and viewer — is where the real work begins.
