Lynn Hill is an associate professor in the Elmhurst College Art Department.
She also is an innovative artist who, for the last several years, has traveled and taken students to India and other parts of the world to learn and to serve.
Beginning last April, Hill took a three-month sabbatical and traveled to Gujarat, India, and Oxford, England. The work that was inspired from those trips and others comprises Traveler: A Sabbatical Exhibition, which will be shown at Elmhurst College beginning on February 26.
Featuring a selection of photographs, collages and artist books, the work in the exhibition approaches the overarching subject of travel and also serves to document particular trips. Imagery and impressions of India, England and South Africa provide the wider framework for exploration into specific experiences. Traveler imagery includes schoolchildren in a Cape Town township, women in the Kutch villages of Khari and Khavda, and the imaginative sensibility of Oxford.
Hill’s digital imaging and multimedia works are shown in many conventional and online galleries. For the Traveler exhibition, her mixed-media collages incorporate paper, digital photos, transfer of photos, ink, paint, wire and found objects. A series of collages incorporates words and thoughts from the Indian poet Tagore, who wrote about journeys, traveling and going home.
“Travel makes you look at things differently and challenges biases and perceptions you didn’t even know you had,” Hill said. “Travel changes you.”
Traveler: A Sabbatical Exhibition can be viewed from February 26 to March 20 in the Founders Lounge of the Frick Center. The artist’s reception will be held on March 6 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the Founders Lounge, with an artist’s talk at 5:00 p.m. The Frick Center is open days and evenings. For more information, call (630) 617-3390.