BIO
Rebecca Hoyer was born in Chicago but has moved about, living in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, New York and now Wichita. She studied Graphic Design at Washington University in St. Louis, followed by painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and with Knox Martin at the Art Students League in New York.
Since arriving in Wichita, she has been working with the local landscape, trying to identify what makes it both distinctive and beautiful. She paints familiar things — trees and houses — in a style that is both pastoral and radical.
A resident of Wichita’s College Hill neighborhood, Rebecca is an active member of the creative community. She recently completed two paintings commissioned by the Wichita Art Museum to promote their new Art Garden, and her work has taken up residence in the collections of the Wichita Mark Arts, Emprise Bank, and the Kansas Health Foundation and the Wichita Art Museum.
Working in both watercolor and oil, the essence of her art is the drawing. A scene is drawn numerous times as the framing is established and the individual elements arranged and elaborated. When the drawing is complete, she turns to the surface, experimenting with colors and textures until the work is complete. Variations are created as she commits the painting to different media.
New work can be seen in Wichita at Reuben Saunders Gallery, and in Manhattan (Kansas) at the Strecker Nelson West Gallery.
STATEMENT
Drawing for me is a meditative, repetitive practice. I experiment until I solve the puzzle of how to render the chaos one sees into a series of lines. The line that divides the page. The line that zig-zags up an evergreen tree. The circular line of a sidewalk, the edge of a house. Each line is a separate discovery.
I’ve always worried that I work too slowly. I often do 50 drawings before I start painting. But I have come to realize that this is the part I enjoy. I edit and refine. I am not trying to reproduce, even in an abstract way, a photograph. I am creating a vocabulary, a labyrinth of shapes. A stack of triangles becomes the shadows in a tree. A half-ellipse becomes a sheltering tree umbrella.
I like everything in the right place and to line up, to balance. It calms the chaos. I paint houses and trees because they are adversaries. I am telling the story of how these two forces live together. Houses want permanence. They are a pile of bricks and want to be left alone. Trees want change. They want to grow. They make more trees. They crack sidewalks and bring down chimneys.
For example, I walked by a little gray house on a gray day. There were five skinny trees growing up and around it. Their branches were swaying and playing in the wind. The forlorn little house was down below unable to join the fun. That story is a painting.
Another day, as I walked down the sidewalk, there was a big old tree with two limbs spreading out. As I glanced at it, it looked like those branches were making the blue house smile. And why wouldn’t it? The flowers were blooming, its bushes were budding. It looked beautiful. And the tree was helping by pointing it all out. That story is a painting.
When you look at my paintings, I am asking you to follow me through a labyrinth of strange shapes. Then when you go home, maybe you too will see your house sitting among dancing trees.
For complete
curriculum vitae
in a pdf:
click here.
C/V Abridged
REBECCA HOYER
4433 East First Street North, Wichita, Kansas 67208 • 316-761-2760 • www.rebeccahoyer.com
BIO:
1980 BFA, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
1983 School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
1986 Art Student’s League of New York
SOLO SHOWS:
2021 Labrinth, Reuben Saunders Galllery, Wichita, Kansas
2019 more paintings of houses and plants, Reuben Saunders Galllery, Wichita, Kansas
2017 Bringing the Outside–Inside, Reuben Saunders Galllery, Wichita, Kansas
2014 Neighborhood, Hutchinson Art Center, Hutchinson, Kansas
2013 Scenic Route, The Gallery at Artworks, Wichita, Kansas
2009 Tree – House, Steckline Gallery Newman University, Wichita, Kansas
2007 Urban Landscape, Hutchinson Art Center, Hutchinson, Kansas
2006 Reinventing the Landscape, Cowley College, Earle N. Wright Room Gallery, Arkansas City, Kansas
2005 Hello, Neighbor, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, Missouri
2004 The Museum Show, Project, Wichita, Kansas
2003 City Views, Hesston College Gallery, Hesston, Kansas
2002 Beyond Wichita, Trish Higgins Fine Art, Wichita, Kansas
2001 LandShapes, CityArts, Wichita, Kansas
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS:
2021 Salon 50, Salina Art Center, Salina, Kansas
2020 Foot in the Door, Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas
2018 People and Places, Strecker-Nelson-West Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2018 40 Years in the Making!, Reuben Saunders Galllery, Wichita, Kansas
2018 Crestwood Opening, Brandon Jacobs Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri
2018 Kansas Invitational, inaugural exhibition in the new Mark Arts, Wichita, Kansas
2017 Other Worlds, Strecker-Nelson-West Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2016 Avenue Art Days, Mural sponsored by Botanica, Wichita, Kansas
2016 National Small Oil Painting Exhibition 2016, Mark Arts, Wichita, Kansas
2015 Featured Artist, The Gallery at Artworks, Wichita, Kansas
2015 Kansas Watercolor Society National Exhibition, The Wichita Center for the Arts Gallery, Wichita, Kansas
2015 Outdoor Spaces, Butler County Community College, E. B. White Gallery, El Dorado, Kansas
2014 Clark Britton & Rebecca Hoyer, The Gallery at Larksfield Place, Wichita, Kansas
2014 Watercolor: Delicate Beauty from a Difficult Medium, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2013 Joe’s Swan Show, CityArts, Wichita, Kansas
2013 Contemporary Regonalists, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2012 Kansas Watercolor Society National Exhibition, The Wichita Center for the Arts Gallery, Wichita, Kansas
2012 UrbanScapes, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2011 Brücke Nicht Weit, Butler County Community College, E. B. White Gallery, El Dorado, Kansas
2010 Fluidity, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2010 Featured Artist, The Gallery at Artworks, Wichita, Kansas
2009 Kansas Masters Invitational, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2008 Visual Discourse, Start-Thinking and KMUW, Wichita, Kansas
2007 Cutting Edge Traditionalists, CityArts, Wichita, Kansas
2007 The Illusion of Reality, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2007 XX3: Fisch Haus Annual Invitational, Fisch Haus, Wichita, Kansas
2007 Kansas Masters Invitational, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2006 Art for the Cure: Survivor Celebration, CityArts, Wichita, Kansas
2006 Community: An Urban Landscape Exhibit, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2004 Conversations With Earth and Sky, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, Kansas
2003 Revisited, an ACAAK Invitational, Hays Arts Center, Hays, Kansas
2003 Artists of Note, Trish Higgins Fine Art, Wichita, Kansas
2001 Post No Realism, Dirt Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri
2000 7 State Watercolor Exhibition, Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas
2000 Natürlich, Trish Higgins Fine Art, Wichita, Kansas
2000 2 Years Without a Theme, Acme Gallery, Wichita, Kansas
1998 Grand Opening, cofounded co-op gallery in downtown Wichita, Acme Gallery, Wichita, Kansas
1994 Small Oil Painting Competition, Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, Kansas
1994 Kansas Artists’ Postcard Series XVII, Baker Arts Center, Liberal, Kansas
1989 Four Women Artists, White Gallery, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
PUBLICATIONS:
2018 “Art Garden Imagined”, Patricia McDonnell, The Art Garden, Wichita Art Museum
2017 “Wichita artist's College Hill paintings return, with twist”, Matt Riedl, Wichita Eagle, Wichita, KS, March 31
2016 “Featured Artist”, The Journal, Wichita, Kansas, Summer
2015 “Art Garden Imagined”, WAM Views, Wichita, Kansas, September-October
2015 “Art Garden Grand Opening”, ArtNews, New York, NY, September
2009 “This Modern House”, Barry Owens, College Hill Commoner, Wichita, Kansas, April
2007 “New ways to familiar paths”, Chris Shull, Wichita Eagle, Wichita, Kansas, December 21
2002 “Color wheels”, Chris Shull, Wichita Eagle, Wichita, Kansas, December 13
2001 “Artist’s work showcases city”, Chris Shull, Wichita Eagle, Wichita, Kansas, August 3
2001 “Disparity at Dirt Gallery: Welcome Wichita”, Heather Lustfeldt, Review, Kansas City, Kansas, March
COLLECTIONS:
The Kansas Health Foundation
Mark Arts - The Mary R Koch Arts Center
The Emprise Bank Collection
The Wichita Art Museum
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Project Art