Encre, gouache et aquarelle sur papier kozo, 2025
This work on Japanese kozo paper depicts a fence gate obstructed by a tangled web of rope stretched across its opening. The distant shoreline of a lake in Hildebrand’s home province of Manitoba is seen through it.
Dil Hildebrand’s work centres on dualist strategies of two-foldness within painting, sculpture, and print media. Drawing on architectural and theatrical tropes alongside historical traditions of trompe l’oeil and craft, he investigates regions of overlap between abstraction and representation. Hildebrand’s work has been shown in such venues as the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (Toronto), the National Art Museum of China (Beijing), and the Fondation Giverny pour l’art contemporain (Montréal).
His work has been collected by major public institutions throughout Canada, including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the National Gallery of Canada, the Fondation Giverny pour l’art contemporain, and the Canada Council Art Bank, and is in numerous private and corporate collections throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe.