Hillel Selznick: The Artistic Journey of a Painter

Hillel Selznick
3 min readDec 21, 2022

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Hillel Selznick was born in New York on November 21, 1960. He started drawing at an early age and began painting as a teenager. Selznick had a religious upbringing and was influenced by Jewish mysticism. Selznick decided to become an artist when he was a teenager, but he was aware of the difficulty in finding work as an artist at the time. He enrolled at the School of Visual Arts in New York University and received his BFA in 1978. Since then, Selznick preferred abstract art, as it did not connote any particular style.

Selznick’s abstract works are characterized by precise lines and intense colors. He uses a combination of watercolor, acrylic, and oil paint to achieve his abstract pieces. While his paintings have a loose, free-flowing quality, he does not use a wide range of colors. He is not a pop or figurative artist and instead uses mostly blue, yellow, and red. His paintings are almost two-dimensional, showing flat planes of color. Selznick aims to create abstract works that focus on the materiality of his materials. His paintings explore the strength of color and the fluidity of lines. His paintings are often monumental and filled with an intense sense of space.

Selznick’s earliest abstract pieces were inspired by Eastern philosophies and mysticism. These early works were mostly monochromatic, sometimes showing one dominant color. Selznick also explored themes of nature and the ocean in these works. He began to explore color in his work with the “Phantom Series” paintings in the mid-1990s. The Phantom Series paintings featured brightly colored sponges and other sea creatures. As Selznick’s career progressed, his abstract paintings became bolder and more intense. He expanded his subject matter to include landscapes, architectural structures, and abstract figures. Selznick often used a multidimensional approach when creating these works, showing both flat planes of color and 3-dimensional shapes.

As an influential artist, Selznick had a profound impact on the early abstract expressionists. His work was very much rooted in European tradition and incorporated a New York sensibility. Selznick’s paintings also had an intimate quality that was reminiscent of the French Impressionists. He often painted landscapes and still lifes, often using large brush strokes to create dense and monochromatic pieces. Selznick often used vivid blue, yellow, and red colors to create striking pieces. His abstract works were often monumental and showed an intense sense of space. His images often explored the relationship between man and nature.

Hillel Selznick’s works are characterized by precise lines and intense colors. Selznick is not a figurative artist, preferring to use mainly blue, yellow, and red for his paintings. He explores a diverse range of subjects in his work, often using a multidimensional approach to create complex and multilayered pieces.

His paintings are often monumental and filled with an intense sense of space.

Originally published at https://hillelselznick.weebly.com.

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Hillel Selznick
Hillel Selznick

Written by Hillel Selznick

Hillel Selznick is an acclaimed visual artist from New York City. His art is represented in many notable collections, including several museums.

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