Page 35 - CulturalAdventures3 final

tist shares his vision of creation

By Arlene Benham Phtos by the artit, teven Hileman

Bucksport artist Steven Hileman has been drawing as long as he can remember. Today, the award-winning artist sells oil paintings of
Downeast Maine that beautifully capture the light and convey a strong sense of place, whether they depict a downtown street on a rainy
day or the late-afternoon sun on a grassy field or shoreline. His landscapes, seashores and towns feel like places you’ve been – or
places you’d like to go.

“I pretty much remember drawing all my life,” Steven said. He was enrolled in art classes at an early age, and continued through high
school as private lessons helped him explore different styles and media. College studies in commercial art further widened his experi-
ence to graphic design, “and during that time I fell in love with oils.”

Working from 1999-2002 as a textbook illustrator for a Christian educational publisher in Florida forced him to think creatively to
develop original illustrations from source material for science books, readers and other literature. The work ranged widely from the
realism he is drawn to, to more cartoon-style characters for fiction. “It was a huge time of growth,” he said.

He did his own paintings on weekends, and when he and his wife moved to Maine in 2002, he pursued painting full-time and gallery
representation. He has been with the Argosy Gallery in Bar Harbor since 2003. He has also exhibited in Vermont, Wisconsin and
Colorado, and in juried shows where he has won Best of Show, People’s Choice and jurors’ awards.

Steven lists among his inspirations John Singer Sargent; Russian impressionists including Isaak Levitan; contemporaries like leading
landscape painters T. Allen Lawson, Clyde Aspevig, and Richard Schmid; and his college instructor Brian Jekel, “for pointing me in
the right direction.”

Sappharine Cove, oil on linen, 20” x 24”. Photo by Steven Hileman
33