Hilary Marshall

Hilary is a mixed media artist based in Cambridgeshire. Her work is often inspired by nature or memory of experience but responding to materials and processes involved in her work is also key to her practice.

Central to her work are two fascinations. Firstly her love of colour manifests itself as exploration into colour groupings; how different combinations interact with each other, the effects of layering, texture and mark making – sometimes suspending translucent layers creating additional shades through light and shadow. Secondly, Hilary’s curiosity about different materials and processes drives her experimentation of combining artistic disciplines – discovering what can be achieved and how that might look in her work.

It is important to Hilary that her work is constantly evolving. If she isn’t asking herself ‘what if” questions she knows its time to think about her practice in a new way. With these ideals at the heart of her work, we see translucent materials change the perspective of the piece – fields could shift in space as if you were flying overhead, a fragile sun could be a transient object shifting in time and space.

Her most recent work investigates the layering of chance happenings through mono silk screen printing. Images are in part revealed to her through the process and then brought into being with surface drawing. The process includes technical subtleties such as effects of diluting paint, variation in drawing on wet and dry surfaces and the order of play when combining different medium.

Hilary’s early career was as a graphic artist, having graduated with BA Hons in Graphic Design from Middlesex Polytechnic in 1986; a foundation which she believes continues to influence her work. Her area of specialism was in packaging design, developing brands for high street names such as Marks and Spencer and Boots. After a career break with her young family Hilary became a primary school teacher where she was the art subject lead. She was delighted to achieve Artsmark gold status for her school, raising the profile of the arts in a difficult political climate. Art education continues to be important to her resulting in work on several collaborative projects with schools.

Hilary has exhibited widely across Cambridgeshire: Stapleford Granary, AKA Contemporary, Babylon Arts, Art@one, Haddenham Arts and Wisbech Gallery. She is a member of The Cambridge Drawing Society and Cambridge Open Studios.