Cubist Party (Seen From Three Sides Of A Cone) 2004

John Hilliard made "Cubist Party (Seen From Three Sides Of A Cone)" by taking a photograph and then layering the images. It’s not a painting, but the way Hilliard thinks about it is super painterly. The shapes are quite flat: cones, spheres, cubes that float and bump into each other. I enjoy how the black and white tones lend themselves to the geometric structures and how these interact to create an overall composition. It’s almost like he’s painting with a camera! The cones and spheres might also serve as props or even hats worn by the people in the shot, lending the image a kind of performative feeling. There is this one guy holding a wine glass; he seems to be drinking in the layering of multiple views, and how they fracture reality. Hilliard’s work, like that of artists such as David Hockney, opens up how we see and experience the world. It shows us that reality is not just a single, fixed viewpoint but something much more fluid and multifaceted.