Bo Hilton

“I explore the conceptual and poetic power within painting, through the process of making a work”

Through minimal gestures, nuanced colour choices and motifs charged with memory and experience, Bo creates paintings with autonomy and inner life. They are filled with found and remembered imagery, motifs of the absent or invisible figure: echoes, suggestions and emotional ambiguity. Finished pieces are often only subtly imbued with the original motif or idea, as Bo’s approach involves applying, removing and reapplying paint. He harnesses the formal qualities of painting to make works that affect the viewer at an instinctual level: they are encompassing, resonant emotive spaces that work as a whole in terms of harmony and balance, inviting the eye to discover and enjoy the physical process of viewing.

 Bo is the son of two extraordinary artists: Roger and Rose Hilton. He grew up in Botallack, South West Cornwall, surrounded by elemental and creative forces that have shaped his singular approach and vision. He studied printmaking at Brighton Art School and achieved an MA in 1988. After qualification Bo was selected frequently for the RA Summer Show and has also run galleries in Penzance and Bath, where he currently lives. He returned to painting full time in 2018.