Sabina Hill

Cana­dian artist and designer, Sabina Hill, creates art, inte­ri­ors, limited edition furni­ture and custom textiles, which merge the rich mythol­ogy of the Pacific North­west Coast with a contem­po­rary design aesthetic.

Born in Vancou­ver, BC, and descended from four gener­a­tions of Pacific Coast Cana­di­ans, living between the forest and the sea, Sabina is inspired by her sense of place and tells a visual story through her innovative designs. 

Sabina holds degrees in envi­ron­men­tal studies from the Univer­sity of Mani­toba and in archi­tec­ture from the Univer­sity of British Colum­bia. In 1993, she founded her multi-disci­pli­nary studio with projects ranging from custom resi­den­tial, inte­ri­ors and reno­va­tions, to built-in furni­ture and landscape design.

Seeking to create works with a distinctly Pacific North­west Coast design aesthetic, Sabina began collab­o­rat­ing profes­sion­ally with Aborig­i­nal artists in 1998. These collab­o­ra­tions reflect an endur­ing legacy of exchange and cross-fertil­iza­tion between artists. Her creations, presented through unique mate­r­ial combi­na­tions and leading edge tech­nolo­gies, bring the cere­mo­nial into daily life and cele­brate the conver­gence of two distinct design cultures. Dr. George Macdon­ald, former pres­i­dent of the Bill Reid Foun­da­tion and direc­tor of the Bill Reid Centre for North­west Coast Art Studies at Simon Fraser Univer­sity, hails her work as ​“demon­strat­ing the next phase in the devel­op­ment of North­west Coast art and design.” 

In her solo work, Sabina explores contem­po­rary mythol­ogy through her personal mode of abstrac­tion. Her complex tableau of organic designs expresses the language of modernism infused with a Pacific North­west Coast regional char­ac­ter. With her back­ground in relief print­mak­ing and archi­tec­ture, she has devel­oped a keen under­stand­ing of posi­tive and nega­tive space, which are essen­tial elements of Native art; she trans­forms these into solid and void in her 3‑dimensional work.

Her work is recog­nized nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally. It is in the perma­nent collec­tion of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada, and it has been commis­sioned by the Govern­ment of Canada for diplo­matic premises abroad includ­ing Canada House High Commis­sion in London, England, the Cana­dian Joint Dele­ga­tion to NATO in Brus­sels, Belgium, the new Cana­dian consulate in Guangzhou, China, and the Offi­cial Resi­dences in Berlin, Germany, and Barbados.

Sabina is currently build­ing her home gallery and studio, which she designed for her water­front prop­erty in Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast of BC. This highly unique live-work space will include a well-appointed private guest suite, accom­mo­dat­ing collec­tors who wish to live with her art in a truly immer­sive expe­ri­ence, observe her creative process, and collab­o­rate on commissioned pieces.