Inspired by both the culture of the Khmer people of Cambodia and California’s street culture, Andrew Hem crafts vibrant peeks into everyday life. In a new show at Galerie Openspace titled “Fragmentz,” his recent experimentations are offered. Hem was last featured on HiFructose.com here and crafted the cover for HF Vol. 21.
Andrew Hem has been painting all his life, first as a graffiti artist in his teenage years and now as a full-time exhibiting artist on a worldwide scale. We first featured Hem’s art on the cover of Hi-Fructose Vol. 21 and here on our blog, a culmination of his travels and a haunting view of the world, which he fills with floating and wandering figures over diverse landscapes.
The terrain in Los Angeles based artist Andrew Hem’s paintings is a culmination of his imaginative view of the world. There are completely foreign and yet vaguely familiar lush and urban landscapes filled with dancing, floating, and wandering figures. You could describe them as meditative, and Hem admits that most of his images come to him when he is alone with his thoughts, sometimes while driving or traveling. We first featured Hem’s works in and on the cover of Hi-Fructose Vol. 21, at a time when his subjects began to exhibit animalistic and ethereal qualities. He embraces the other-worldy qualities of his work in his current exhibition at KP Projects/MKG in Los Angeles, “Unknown Terrain.”
A new exhibit opening today at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art aims to take a snap shot of the ever growing New Contemporary “school”. It’s class? Many will be familiar to Hi-Fructose readers: Andrew Hem (HF Vol. 21 cover artist), Curiot (Hf Vol. 29), Ekundayo (HF Vol. 9), Erik Jones (HF Vol. 27 cover artist), Kwon Kyungyup (HF Vol. 24), Natalia Fabia (HF Vol. 22), Scott Radke (Hf Vol. 6), Yoskay Yamamoto (HF Vol. 8), and Yosuke Ueno (HF Vol. 10), to name a few. The exhibition will also include an abstract installation by artist Brett Amory (HF Vol. 20). “Invisible College”, which is co-curated by the museum’s Josef Zimmerman and Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles, presents New Contemporary as a movement that is both traditionally inspired and non traditional. See more after the jump.
Andrew Hem (HF Vol. 21 cover artist) makes his curatorial debut tomorrow with “Ill Squad!”, a group exhibition of his fellow artists at Giant Robot gallery. Throughout his career, Hem has shed a light on his favorite artists in another way, in his lush and colorful paintings. Among his subjects are those who inspire him creatively, which he portrays either at work in their studio or on some fantastical adventure. At his solo exhibition last year, “Dream but Don’t Sleep” (covered here), Hem shared with us his ongoing enthusiasm for garnering a public interest in his friends’ work. Nearly all of the artists in his “squad” stem from an illustration background, but together their works are eclectic and showcase a variety of media.
Los Angeles-based artist Andrew Hem (featured on the cover of HF Vol. 21) paints scenes filled with kaleidoscopic colors that convey a sense of fluid motion. His work feels like snapshots of his youthful characters’ adventures. While he paints murals and dabbles in commercial illustration, Hem’s primary focus has been on his personal studio practice in recent years. We featured his last solo show, “Dream But Don’t Sleep” at Merry Karnowsky Gallery, here on the blog earlier this year. Today, we take a look Hem’s process with a peek inside his sketchbook and an exclusive interview.