Curfews, quarantines, closures—2020 left many people stuck in their home reflecting on their lives. For Ron Hicks, this was certainly the case. “I was just in kind of a weird space, and really reflecting from an emotional standpoint,” he says. “Reflecting on who I was and what I should be doing with my role as an artist. I think I was searching for a bigger purpose.”
The Denver-based painter did not find all the answers—does anyone?—but he found some peace in his studio away from the chaos. And then he picked up a brush. “I just felt I had to respond to something,” he adds.
Fractured But Not Broken, oil on panel, 12 x 12"
Red Feelin Blue, oil on panel, 12 x 12"
Beginning November 14, Hicks will be showing his newest pieces, all 12-by-12-inch mini portraits, at a new solo show at Arcadia Contemporary in Pasadena, California. His subjects will include a diverse array of people, which was one of the aspects that drew him to the portraits.
“I wanted to express a multicultural experience, but also show groups that are generally underrepresented,” the artist says, adding that the pandemic has allowed him to take some creative risks that he might otherwise have avoided. “I’m trying to live an honest and true way, so everything I put out should be from the heart. The conclusion is that these are little slices of life that are meant to show these unique figures. I’m not the arbiter of what people should think and feel, so the figures are really allowed to be experienced however the viewer wants.” 
Sage, oil on panel, 12 x 12"
Demure, oil on panel, 12 x 12"
The portraits have a raw, almost abstract quality to the paint application, particularly in the outer edges of the canvas, and yet there are aspects of the faces that are bursting with beautiful detail that convey the emotional energy of the subject. Painting with that kind of dichotomy, it must be difficult to know when the painting is complete? “A wise man once said that it’s done when you said what you needed to say,” Hicks says. “For me, that’s intuition and intuitive behavior. It’s not a process, like crossing a T and dotting an I. When there is completeness in my soul, thenI know it’s done.”
Arcadia Contemporary
39 E. Colorado Boulevard • Pasadena, CA 91105 •
(626) 486-2018 • www.arcadiacontemporary.com
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