I seem to spread myself quite broadly over many creative domains, but really, I’m a visual artist to my core. Someone who draws. And in later years, someone who paints. Out of all the things I do, painting is the one that feels "right".
Painting-wise I’m completely self-taught, but the influences from my Bachelor’s degree in Animation and my previous life as a professional tattoo artist in England are clearly visible. The movement, flow and interactions, combined with the cleanness and clinicalness are key parts of what makes my work recognisable. Combine these things with the drawing style I’ve been developing since I was a child and how I’ve learnt to use and manipulate colour, and you get the paintings that you see on this website.
I’ve presented selections from two bodies of work here: my signature style, and abstract pieces. The abstract style was born out of the signature style — using all of the knowledge and techniques I’d curated over many painstaking paintings, then just letting go and forgetting detail — but it also helps me learn and discover new things that I can pump back into the signature style. The two bodies of work complement each other nicely. I'm currently working on a third collection, which I hope to present later this year. All pieces from all collections are hand-painted on canvas.
I live in Hemsedal, Norway. If I’m not sat inside creating something like a madman, I’ll probably be out getting chased by reindeer up in the mountains or sat in an ice cold river somewhere. I’m not joking.
Marcus Hill
Painter / Hemsedal
Artist Statement / 2026
I don't plan my paintings before I start. I do all my thinking on the canvas.
I like to paint groups or communities of living things, without knowing what the final result will look like. I start by painting the first object, and everything else grows from there. The first object dictates how the objects around it will look, and that snowballs out across the rest of the piece. I've figured out colouring techniques along the way that help accommodate this process and make production a little simpler. "Not planning" my pieces may sound lazy, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I've spent years now fully absorbed, learning, obsessing, battling, struggling and honing every single part of my process so that I'm competent enough to not have to plan my pieces. When I copy stuff it looks wooden. When I create it "in real time" it somehow takes on a life of its own. All the pieces on this site were created in this manner.
