A cut and paste job
Dan Hillier’s collages are being used to help promote the winter season at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
When it comes to creating art for a subject as well known as William Shakespeare, it can be difficult to find an original angle. So it seems fitting that the imagery for the Globe Theatre’s Wonder Noir winter season will instead rely on already existing work by Dan Hillier.
Having been spotted by artistic director Emma Rice in a Bristol gallery, it wasn’t long before she was working with Dan to pick out pieces of his art that were best suited to the Shakespearean plays.
“Emma’s guiding word for the season is ‘Wonder’, and this is something that I consciously try to evoke in my pictures too,” says Dan. “And when she got in touch it just seemed like an excellent marriage of minds.”
Starting out with material sourced from old magazines and antique books, Dan builds up his artwork by scanning in certain details and layering them up in Photoshop. “It feels like an equal mix of directing the work myself and being led by the process, often finding nice surprises lurking beneath layers that have been placed some time ago,” he reveals.
Emma also tasked Dan with creating a new piece with a non-white protagonist. “My work is predominantly made by collaging elements of woodcuts and engravings from the 1800s, meaning it’s actually quite hard to find decent depictions of non-white people from that time that aren’t racially stereotypical or comical and that fit with the style I work in” says Dan. “So it was good to go looking specifically for more diverse imagery.”
Bookings for the Winter Noir season are open now and will run until the start of 2017. For more information visit
www.shakespearesglobe.com. To see more of Dan’s art visit www.danhillier.com.