Artist Statement: Through my work I seek to engage the viewer in a sensory and visual dialogue. Nature and the dynamics of light are my subjects. The spiritual nature of man is my interest. The enigma of the moment, the wonder of scale and the ever present hope of redemption and transformation are my goals. I seek to create a metaphysical reality of intense light and shade where forms appear and dissolve, to dream with eyes open, to feel without touching and to feel touched by the very experience of seeing the painting. There is the suggestion of events and exotic places familiar at once and yet strangely unknown, as if they exist only in the deep memory of Carl Jungian archetypal experience. The image has a pulse and character which is often translated through its unusual use of materials. It seeks to become a powerful yet reassuring visionary experience.

            Born in 1951 in Philadelphia, Frank Hyder has participated in more than 200 group shows and has had over 80 solo exhibitions throughout the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe, including 10 individual exhibitions in New York City.  He has been one of the few North Americans to have solo museum exhibitions in Venezuela at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas Sofia Imber (MACCSI), Museo Jacobo Borges, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Zulia (MACZUL), Museo Universidad de Los Andes and Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Coro.  Other solo museum exhibitions include the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art’s Museum of American Art, the Carnegie Museum in California, the La Salle Museum of Art in Philadelphia, the National Museum of Catholic Art and History in New York and the Noyes Museum in Oceanville, New Jersey.  He was also one of ten artists whose heroic inflatables formed the “Giants in the City” exhibition in Miami during the Art Basel Miami Art Fair in 2010.  In 2014 he was invited by Faberge to participate in New York City’s Great Egg Hunt, along with 260 of New York’s best-known artists, including Jeff Koons and Julian Schnabel.  His piece was exhibited at Saatchi, reproduced in the Sunday New York Times and exhibited at the Central Park Yacht Club.  His was one of 40 selected by Sotheby’s for the grand auction event.

            Hyder received a B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art, attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine, and received a M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.  He was a tenured faculty member and taught at university level for more than 28 years.  He now devotes himself to full-time studio practice.

            His work has been collected by the Library of Congress, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Convention Center, Ontario Museum of Art, Grand Rapids Museum of Art, James A. Michener Art Museum, Woodmere Museum, La Salle Museum, MACCSI Caracas, Museum Jacobo Borges, MACZUL in Venezuela and by numerous corporate and private collectors, including Halle Berry and Sir Elton John. 

            Major awards include a Senior Fulbright Research Grant to Venezuela, U.S. Embassy Cultural Grants, MidAtlantic NEA, two Pennsylvania State Council of the Arts Grants and an International Art Programming Network Partners Grant (Bolivia, Peru, Turkey).  Public commissions include the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program “Hanging garden of I-95” wall mural; Terminal Freezer, Oxnard, CA, ceramic wall mural; and the Museo Jacobo Borges “Bridge of Life” ceramic walkway in Caracas, Venezuela.

Recent solo shows: 

2015 – Butters Gallery, Portland, OR
2014 – Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London
2014 – Rebecca Hossack Gallery, New York
2013 – Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2013 – Mason Murer Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2011 – Patrick International, Toronto, Canada
2010 – Galeria Medicci, Caracas, Venezuela

For more information on Frank Hyder, please visit www.frankhyder.com