New York artist Nate Hill sees dead animals -- and turns them into art.
On any given night in Manhattan's Chinatown, Nate Hill can be
seen going through the garbage looking for dead fish or as he calls
them, "art supplies." He makes art from dead animal parts, leads the Chinatown Garbage Taxidermy Tour, produces a
monthly show on YouTube, and blogs a rewrite of the Bible. This may
sound like a lot, but all of his art work spurs from one obsession: to
be more like God.
"Whether He truly exists or not, God is the
greatest artist of all time," says Hill, 30. This is why, Mr. Hill
says, he wants to copy his mentor. "To make animals or humans, as God did, the
process starts with getting the parts." Hill obtains his animals from
various places such as "taxidermy supply internet websites, Chinatown,
road kill, and vet clinics." He then dismantles the animals and sews
the parts back together. To
invite the public into his art, he hosts a free monthly tour of the
Chinatown garbage where attendees can smell the smells and dig
for themselves in the free art supplies.
Currently,
Mr. Hill is working on building his first life-size humans sewn
strictly from animal parts. To share the techniques involved, he
created a YouTube show, "Chop Chop." Each 28-minute long episode
runs in a documentary film style with no cuts and no script. The viewer
is treated to witnessing the hands of Nate Hill sewing together the
random parts, as voices of various guest narrators do a "play by play"
of the action. The show is completely improvised; the tone is light and
often vulgar-but-humorous. Nick Zedd, noted for his status as a
celebrated underground filmmaker, operates the camera.
Nate's
obsession and connection with God is a unifying element in his work.
This is quite literally evident in his Bible Rewrite Project. Here,
Nate has actually rewritten the Bible text so that it reads to be about
cutting up animals and sewing them back together again. For example, in
his Bible Rewrite, making "new animals" or "new humans", for that matter, is the Holiest activity known
to God. Mr. Hill sees the Bible through his own singular lens and
distorts everything with that prescription.
Nate Hill lives
and works in Harlem, New York. He has a Bachelor of Science in
biology and grew up in Florida.
His father -- er, birth father -- is a surgeon.
Contact:
Nate Hill
stoproadkill@gmail.com
stoproadkill.org
youtube.com/deadanimals
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