ARTIST STATEMENT

I paint mixed media portraits of real and imagined people. While the commissioned portraits contain subtle personality cues culled from photo sessions and the gentle interrogations of my subjects, the fictitious portraits leave it completely up to the viewer to provide the character and narrative for the image. A portrait can express only what someone looks like at the time and moment of the sitting. The imagined person is a composite of many histories assembled to my liking. In the end, whether real or imagined, they become a synthesis of both the subject and the artist and an example of how history will be skewed by the historian.

 
My work combines digital rendering and traditional painting techniques. This system of borrowing, manipulating and distorting, using digital tools is then integrated with the mixed media world using everything from rust to smoke.

 

MORE ABOUT DEE

Dee Hooker is an award-winning artist known for her thought provoking portraits. Her work is rich, quirky and often humorous. There is a bittersweet, even nostalgic flavor running through her art.

 

Art critic Brian Sherwin commented on Dee Hooker's mixed media paintings, stating, "The characters captured in Hooker's portraits are an intriguing mix of the real and imagined. She has created fictitious portraits that welcome viewers to discover personal narratives based upon their own ventures within the realm of imagination." 

Dee Hooker has lived and exhibited internationally.  She has exhibited locally at the Monterey Museum of Art, Triton Museum, Riverside Museum, Long Beach Museum and Santa Cruz Museum of Art. Dee lives and works out of her beautiful home studio in Soquel, CA.

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