About Hillen
He has also executed commissions and collaborations including video for Super Furry Animals; stage design, advertisements, title graphics and permanent sculptures for Citigroup and Dublin City Council.
He won the international design competition, with landscape architect Desmond Fitzgerald, for the Omagh Bomb Memorial unveiled in August 2008.
In his eagerly anticipated most recent work, Hillen brings his lively visual intelligence to bear on contested myths circulating in the post 9/11 global community.
His work is in many private and public collections including Permanent Collection of the Imperial War Museum (two works on permanent exhibition), Newry & Mourne Museum (permanent exhibition forthcoming), Wolverhampton Museum (permanent exhibition forthcoming), Allied Irish Bank, the Irish State Collection, the European Central Bank, The Irish Central Bank, Citigroup SA, Swiss Re., and Microsoft Ltd. Born in 1961 in Newry, Co. Down. Lives and works in Dublin.
Studied at Belfast College of Art, LCP and the Slade School.
Now recognised as one of the most significant artists of his generation, Hillen first became known for photomontage works based on his own gritty documentary photos from the Northern Irish 'Troubles', which have since have become more widely-known and studied as ‘masterworks’ of the medium.
In the 1990’s he moved back to Dublin from London and began a new series of collage works titled ‘IRELANTIS’, which have come to be seen as “the most vivid and emblematic expression of the dreams and anxieties of ‘Celtic Tiger’ Ireland”- as another critic put it: “the Ireland manufactured from equal parts of sacred presence, and fit-up hucksterism”.
Almost twenty of these works now feature on the covers of books, including many academic works on aspects of contemporary Ireland.
He has also executed commissions and collaborations including video for Super Furry Animals; stage design, advertisements, title graphics and permanent sculptures for Citigroup and Dublin City Council.
He won the international design competition, with landscape architect Desmond Fitzgerald, for the Omagh Bomb Memorial unveiled in August 2008.
In his eagerly anticipated most recent work, Hillen brings his lively visual intelligence to bear on contested myths circulating in the post 9/11 global community.
His work is in many private and public collections including Permanent Collection of the Imperial War Museum (two works on permanent exhibition), Newry & Mourne Museum (permanent exhibition forthcoming), Wolverhampton Museum (permanent exhibition forthcoming), Allied Irish Bank, the Irish State Collection, the European Central Bank, The Irish Central Bank, Citigroup SA, Swiss Re., and Microsoft Ltd.
