Angol
Andrew Hems artwork captures the rich emotion of in-between states, visually depicting those fraught emotional vignettes that call for reserves of bravery and wisdom previously underestimated. Hem himself was born in transition, during his parents flight from Cambodia in the wake of the Khmer Rouge genocide; the delicate figures he paints always seem to be in just one moment of a much deeper narrative. The instability captured in his scenes of people within empty city streets, expansive rice fields, snowy mountain passes, or fishing boats is given new meaning within his gorgeously shaded, layered brushwork paintings that also draw from the urban graffiti art scene he was exposed to growing up in Los Angeles. Hem received his B.F.A. in Illustration from the Art Center College of Art and Design in 2006. He has been featured in publications including Beyond Illustration, Communication Arts, Society of Illustrators, Hi-Fructose, American Illustration, and Spectrum; this is his first monograph.
