Paranormally-inclined esoteric artist Susan Hiller passes away aged 78

The Tallahassee-born, London-based, multidisciplinary artist Susan Hiller has passed away at the age of 78.

Often described as “esoteric”, Hiller’s work – which spans video, writing, performance, photography, and installations – took cues from her unusual interests: UFOs, near-death experiences, and the frankly freaky thing that is automatic writing, all feeding into her distinctive, and distinctly individual approach to art.

As a student, Hiller hopped from the arts to anthropology, going on to complete a PhD in 1965. It was, perhaps, that interest in how humanity and society entwined that led her to focus on experiences far beyond the quotidian.

Influenced as much by Fluxus as surrealism, she operated in a self-defined sphere of the “paraconceptual”, an artistic halfway house in which the paranormal and the conceptual cohabited.

The artist went on to have work collected by and exhibited in some of the world’s biggest galleries and institutions, including MoMA, Tate, and the Centre Pompidou.