John Hilliard

John Hilliard is a British artist with a conceptual approach to the use of photography, actively questioning the medium as a representational device. He challenges viewers to re-evaluate photography as a form of documentation, and to consider its vulnerability to manipulation.

Hilliard studied at St Martin’s School of art, where he first engaged with the idea of favouring the concept over the object. His practice uses multiple techniques pre and post production to distort and abstract subjects from their original state.

Hilliard has taught at Camberwell College of Art, Chelsea College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, in London. His first solo exhibition was at Camden Arts Centre in 1969, and a declarative use of photography as a first-order medium at that point has since become the premise on which much of his practice is based. His work is part of the collections of the Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum, Tokyo; and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.