WES
HEMPEL

“I consider these new paintings like a hinge. For many years I was motivated to focus imagery through an art historical lens, my goal to deploy subject matter as an infiltrator into an arena where gay stories were historically lacking. Over the past decade or so it’s been gratifying to see other artists pick up that assignment and carry that ball forward. With these paintings, however, I’ve been happier to simply indulge my love of color and the lusciousness of nature in addition to the figure. The nice thing about being a hinge in this case is that I am looking forward to an expansion of new ideas and techniques that carry my own story further.”

​

Wes Hempel is an active artist in Colorado. He was born in El Monte, CA, and received his BA from Cal State Northridge and his MA from CU Boulder. He has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. since 1987, and his paintings are included in numerous private and public collections, including the Denver Art Museum, National Gallery of Art in Washington, Microsoft Art Collection, and the New Britain Museum of American Art (CT), among others. Since the mid-1990s, Hempel has frequently collaborated on paintings with Jack Balas, an artist who works in both painting and photography.