Bob Hiemstra

A graduate of Parson’s School of Design, Bob spent years in the commercial art world.  He worked first as an illustrator with work published in many magazines as well as creating work for advertising clients.  When the cultural zeitgeist turned away from illustration, he turned to commercial photography, working again for magazines, advertising clients, and catalogues.

In recent years, he has returned to an artistic practice.  His work, simultaneously figurative and abstract, focuses on the human figure and the landscape of coastal Maine.  Working mostly with oil paint and oil sticks, and sometimes gouache, the images he creates seem both familiar, and yet somehow not of a specific place, time, or person.  With a unique clarity of vision through sensuous line, bold gesture and sublime color, Bob creates intriguing images that allow the viewer’s gaze to wander and linger in his atmospheric spaces.