| Joan Hiller-Depper |
Featured Artist PDX Salon April 20, 2009
Joan Hiller Depper double-majored in painting and communications at the University of Houston in the late ‘90s, and is a Portland, Oregon-based artist, writer and music/arts/film publicist. To date, her work has been shown at the Unitard Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, the Medicine Park Gallery in Chicago IL, Velouria and Solo in Seattle, WA, the Kunst Gallery in Koln, Germany, the Glass House in Pomona, CA, Cascadia Contemporary in Anacortes, WA, PDX Salon in Portland, OR and the Blaffer Gallery in Houston, TX. She also runs Riot Act Media, a boutique publicity firm that expertly launches creative, communication-based campaigns for clients in the independent music, film and arts worlds—as well as for non-profit and corporate entities—through its office in Portland, OR.
Joan Hiller, Owner / Publicity Director
Joan got her start playing house shows and publishing a crappy fanzine called Out of Order in Houston, TX, where she booked and promoted shows for years while street-teaming for Grand Royal and Holiday Matinee. She then moved to Chicago to work at Hopper PR, play in other bands, and write for several publications, including Venus, RollingStone.com, Newcity, UR Chicago, Alternative Press, Punk Planet, Detroit Metro Times, The Stranger, Portland Mercury and others. After relocating to Seattle, she booked the Crocodile Cafe' for a short time before being hired by Sub Pop, where she worked for four years before joining and eventually acquiring Riot Act. She relocated to Portland in 2008, where she currently lives with her husband, cat and turtle.
For a PDX Salon event, Joan created THIS body of work:
COVER, COVER, COVER
"A new collection of oil pieces by Joan Hiller Depper, COVER COVER COVER explores the concept of imitation and reproduction as art, positing that any mimicry/replica of existing creative work is distinct art by virtue of the spirit and intent in which it was created. Here, Hiller Depper has selected vinyl LPsfrom artists who not only largely covered other artists’ songs, but who chose to depict themselves on the cover of their albums alone, without other people, objects or settings in the background to communicate more about that artist’s distinction to the consumer. She reproduced the covers in oil, sans text, on the original vinyl pieces, with the original vinyl inside and the back cover intact. Hiller Depper invites the viewer to take apart the frame, remove the vinyl inside and listen to the artist’s album while looking at the newly-reproduced cover."