Bethanne Hill
Bethanne Bethard Hill was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the youngest of six children, and was raised in Birmingham. A graduate of the visual arts department at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, Bethanne holds a BFA with a double concentration in painting and sculpture from Birmingham-Southern College.
Bethanne, her husband (artist Darius Hill), and their youngest child, Atticus, live in the Avondale/Forest Park area of Birmingham. Their oldest daughter, Olivia, is also an artist and lives in Atlanta. Their middle daughter, Esme, is an actor and model, living in Birmingham. Bethanne works from her studio in the carriage house behind their home, where she paints and illustrates full-time.
The cover image for PBLJ8.5 is Bethanne’s ‘Gerrymander Abduction’:
I’ve been painting southern landscapes with tornadoes and UFO abductions for years. The storm and disruption always feels half menacing/half playful. Often, the animals, implements, plants and other objects tossed skyward are what you might expect to see. Occasionally, I use the imagery of these sweeping forces to fantasize about getting rid of specific troubles or problematic people, politicians. Years ago I saw a political cartoon depicting a gerrymander (the calculated manipulation of political district boundaries to favor one political party) as a sort of squirming lizard creature, so that’s what this painting depicts. The painting is a wish, a dream that this unfair and harmful practice, this twisted “creature” would be gone.
@bethannehill
www.TheBethannehill.com