| HALL GROAT II $700 Oil on panel| 6x6 in.
Terms of Sale Hall Groat II Biography, Contemporary Painter, AmericanPainter Hall Groat II, professor and chair of Art and Design at SUNY Broome Community College, teaches foundation courses in painting, drawing, color theory, and computer graphics. Groat earned a master of fine arts degree in painting and drawing from City University of New York at Brooklyn, a bachelor of arts in art history, minoring in studio art at Binghamton University, and attended graduate and certificate programs at Buffalo State College, Syracuse University, and Savannah College of Art and Design. He also attended summer sessions at Chautauqua School of Art, Chautauqua, NY, and Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vt. Hall Groat II is a prolific painter whose work is noted for its beauty, use of light and shadow and evocative depictions of diverse subjects. Groat’s painterly realist style is devoid of the rigid formality of contemporary hyperrealism, where his work projects a romantic emotion and sense of timelessness. His primary subjects include portraits, landscapes, city scenes, desserts, cocktail glasses, flowers, still lifes and narrative paintings. Groat takes a classical approach to modern subjects and his subtle use of light results in a certain intimacy. Groat began to paint as a child, as his father is a successful impressionist painter. He has produced and sold more than 2,000 oil paintings so far in his short career. Just recently, he has made his vast collection of artwork available in the form of a giclee. These are high quality prints with a canvas-like texture that make his work more accessible to discriminating art buyers. Groat has had one-person exhibitions at Everson Museum of Art, Roberson Museum of Art, Finger Lakes Community College, Cazenovia College, Jasper Rand Art Museum, Lemoyne College, Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, and Washington and Jefferson College, and has participated in dozens of group shows throughout the United States. In 2004 Groat was included in the Roberson Museum Center’s exhibition, “The Cosmos and Chaos: a Cultural Paradox,” with artists Lucian Freud, Eric Fischl, Jerome Witkin and several other contemporary artists. His work is included in private and public collections internationally, including Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, Clear Channel Communications, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cellular One, House and Garden, LTD., Sheraton Hotel Corporation, Binghamton University, Everson Museum of Art, Munson-Williams Proctor Institute of Art, The State University of New York system, Roberson Museum and Science Center and Washington Jefferson College. Hall Groat II Artist StatementPainting has the potential to reveal the extraordinary within the mundane and overlooked. Groat is interested in the transformative possibilities of inanimate objects, and their potential play on our psychological and spiritual relationships. A single object may speak of spiritual stillness and timelessness, or engage the viewer in a very different dialogue when combined with other elements. Painting that merges modern art discoveries with a classical aesthetic, often pushes me toward subjects that blur the boundaries between the familiar and the unconventional. As a child I explored the world through collage, and was fascinated with how geometric shapes of paper could be assembled into abstract configurations. The compositions were simple at first, however later took on a sense of depth and richness as other materials were added to obscure forms. The collages often ended up looking quite mystical, which may have been a result of countless hours spent out-of-doors, and my fascination with the changes that took place in nature over time and distance. Now as a perceptual painter, I find that my strongest work emerges when elements from these formative years mesh with the present, resulting in art that may pose more questions than provide answers.
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