Dallas Contemporary is pleased to present Velvet Faith, featuring artists EJ Hill and Martin Gonzales opening on 28 February 2025. Curated by Associate Curator Emily Edwards, Velvet Faith showcases site-specific installation works created during a month-long residency at the museum alongside new and past sculptures and paintings.
In their inaugural joint artistic venture—transcending their individual practices by uniting in a shared artistic journey—the artists explore the dynamics of intentional community through intimate relationships, challenging conventional notions by investigating the ways community can exist between just two individuals. Within this two-person framework, Velvet Faith serves as a trust fall for both artists: in coming together onsite to create new work in a collaborative process, both embrace the unknown of what will emerge and emphasize trust and faith as foundational elements.
“Dallas Contemporary is deeply honored to host this exciting collaboration between EJ Hill and Martin Gonzales, and we are eager to see what emerges from this unique residency. The work is a celebration of softness, of living one’s truth, and of creating a space where vulnerability is not seen as weakness, but as a powerful act of resistance and self-empowerment,” - Emily Edwards.
ABOUT EJ HILL
EJ Hill is an artist born, raised, and based in South Central, Los Angeles. Hill’s practice focuses largely on challenging the social aspects and systems that construct a body. He is not only interested in how bodies and subjectivities are formed, understood, and valued within different social and cultural contexts, but also how they redefine the parameters that govern which of them are allowed to exist freely.
His work has been exhibited at the Hammer Museum; the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Whitney Museum of American Art; MASS MoCA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Aspen Art Museum; PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, Ukraine; and Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, France. Hill received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013 and a BFA from Columbia College Chicago in 2011.
EJ Hill, Brake Run Helix, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and MASS MoCA. Photo by Kaelan Burkett.
ABOUT MARTIN GONZALES
Martin Gonzales is an artist whose practice incorporates drawing, sculpture, installation, video, and performance as means for creating space in the cramped corridors of hegemonic space. This multidisciplinary approach, most recently, has taken form in large scale installation and sculpture whose presence challenges the space through occupation and collision with its confines.
His work has been shown at the Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Walker, Minnesota Museum of American Art, and Plains Art Museum. He received his MFA from The University of Maryland in 2022 and his BFA from the University of Minnesota in 2017.
Martin Gonzales, In the Middle of Somewhere, 2024. Photo by Seth Dalhseid.
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EJ Hill + Martin Gonzales: Velvet Faith is curated by DC's Associate Curator, Emily Edwards, and generously supported by the Dallas Art Fair Foundation, with programming in partnership with the Art Production Fund and support from Leatherology.
Thank you to Skydive Spaceland Dallas for video documentation.