STRAIGHT TALK
with Daniel Hill
Daniel Hill lives and works in Long Island
City, New York. Hill’s paintings embody the
idea of emergence, created from rules he set
inspired by the scientific method.
Untitled
37 (2012).
Diptych, 44”
x 60”. Acrylic
polymer emulsion on paper
mounted on
panel. Courtesy
McKenzie Fine
Art.
incomprehensible vastness, our small, brief
lives, our problems and preoccupations here on
Earth, in large part, become so miniscule and
A: I recall as a kid, staying up until the early
irrelevant as to be somewhat comical. Within
hours of the morning in the backyard with a
this context, my curiosity grew and burning
telescope scanning the skies. I think something questions arose. What really matters? How can
wonderful happens to the way one thinks
we fully understand the universe and our place
and sees our world after intense, prolonged
within it? What should the priorities be for
periods of studying the night sky. I loved
humanity?
thinking of how my telescope was a functioning
My father had degrees in physics and
time machine revealing the truth of a vast
electrical engineering, so lots of interesting
world of which we were a part of, but rarely
books were around, and my life-long love
noticed, thought about, or ever saw. In the
affair with science books began. I was drawn
effort of trying to comprehend the virtually
Q: How did you come to being a science,
specifically physics, inspired artist?
SciArt in America August 2013
15