About
Artist Rick Hilsabeck with 2024 landscape “Pillars to the North” in his Abiquiu studio.
Artist’s Statement
Color. When layered with Light, Movement and Time – Color is provocative. Think of a live stage performance. The story, the performers, the production, the lighting and sound design, all work together toward a cohesive and enriching composition. And you…. the audience, the viewer complete the experience.
I have been fortunate to have had success as a professional performer on the Broadway stage and around the world and… I have always painted. It has been a great privilege to see the world. The challenges that an artist faces on the canvas are similar to those presented when creating on the stage. The joy of putting it all together with the same kind of intuitive impulses: The Physical Act of Making Art. Physical Movement… the repetition of a brush stroke or palette knife, tying the movement of the body to the movement of the eye, and stepping back to get just the right perspective. Nothing is arbitrary. Choosing a vocabulary in pigment is like creating a color palette of select movements. All these similarities continue to call me to the easel.
I consider myself a Colorist. It is the mesmerizing effects of Color and its relationship with light that I find most satisfying to paint and to look at. As I learned early on, finding contentment in the process is everything. One of the challenges for the painter is to capture a feeling in the moment. An inspiration. An experience which in life is ephemeral, but in the color and composition of the painting - lives on.
Artist's Bio
Rick Hilsabeck has loved color ever since he can remember. During childhood visits to The Art Institute in his hometown of Chicago, he was captivated by the rich and vibrant color palettes of such artists as Wolf Kahn, Emily Mason, Paul Cezanne, Auguste Renoir, Gustav Klimt, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Odilon Redon, and Pierre Bonnard as well as the Abstract Expressionists, Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn and Helen Frankenthaler. This was the initial inspiration for him to begin painting. Rick has studied at The School of The Art Institute as well as with Colorado Impressionist painter, Chuck Ceraso, student of Henry Hensche. He was selected to paint in the Impressionist galleries of The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, has shown throughout New England, notably in Fairfield County’s Burr Mansion Art Show, as well as in the Western United States including Lake Dillon Foundation for the Performing Arts Show in Colorado. His work hangs in many private collections.
Rick is a consummate colorist, mixing his oil paint both on the palette and directly on the canvas, board or paper. He frequently incorporates gold leaf as well as metallic pigments along with oils, acrylics and pastels, using brush, knife, fingers, cloth, trowels…you name it.
Rick is also a highly successful professional actor on the Broadway stage and around the world, playing roles such as The Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera and Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Experience traveling as an actor, singer, dancer, choreographer and director have greatly informed his visual art.