Molly Hills art is a wonderfully rich mix of narratives.

The artist darts to and from new and revisited symbolic visual language. Homage to an Asian cultural aesthetic has been a continuing preoccupation. So, it perhaps surprising that she has not turned her attention to the iconic Chinese pioneer, Polly Bemis before now. This overdue topic is addressed in her new series of paintings, which forms the core of her exhibition at the newly opened Brumfields Gallery in Hyde Park. The show opens on the 17th November and runs through until Christmas.

Polly Bemis & Other Paintings by Molly Hill Brumfields Gallery: 17 November - 22 December

It is clear that Molly identifies with this formidable heroine. In addition to Pollys narrative there appears to be an autobiographical subtext. More than in any of her other works, these paintings have an element of self-portraiture. She places figures within the composition as decorative elements that appear to have an awkward interaction with the depicted events or other players in the scene. Instead they nearly always hold a direct gaze with the viewer. In these paintings the main character bears more than a passing resemblance Molly herself. Even when drawing her sources from a clear story-line, Molly creates her own world through an amalgamation of visual aspects, and her own experience of the human condition A world in which she feels comfortable and that says more about Hills own identity than the actual subject matter. Hill describes her approach to theme as, a kind of metaphor for the artist, saying on the canvas what the artist perhaps cannot verbalize.

Brumfields Gallery at Hyde Park, 1513 North 13th Street, Boise, ID, 83702