Andrew Hem’s paintings hover on the left side of reality. With his instantly recognizable style, Hem blends figurative painting with echoes of atmospheric landscapes, graffiti art, and a deep understanding of color harmony. He depicts scenes of the city and the countryside, the modern and the timeless, creating works that mix realism and surrealism, personal truths and collective dreams.
It’s no surprise that Hem’s unique style was born from a unique background. His creative skills were conceived on the streets of Los Angeles, refined at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and developed through a career of long-distance travel and flying. Herm grew up in the Culver City neighborhood of Los Angeles, surrounded by graffiti tags and gang inscriptions. When he entered high school, he became interested in the practice and would go out at night to tag buildings. After the hobby landed him a brief jail sentence, Heng Heng was too frightened to ever practice. He turned to painting as a career. For many years he worked as an illustrator for Disney, working with brands such as Adidas and Sony Pictures, and traveling the world to showcase his work. Helm even received an invitation from the White House to be one of ten artists participating in the Celebration of American Art.
Like his unconventional background, Hem’s artistic process does not follow any one convention. “Every piece is different,” he explains, “so it’s hard to find a way to stick with it and keep repeating it.” Depending on the project, Hem may start with a sketch study, a digital rendering, or, if the vision is clear enough, go straight to canvas. “The lack of routine is probably why I’m still so excited when I get into the studio all these years later,” he says.
His latest series, shown at Dorothy Circus Gallery in London in December, is called Shelter and includes 15 new works of art created by Hem during the pandemic. The title touches on multiple themes; it is a reference to his own past and a recognition of art as a refuge, especially in times of conflict. Herm’s parents fled Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge genocide and were brought to the United States when he was six months old. He was born in a refugee camp before a family in Richmond, Virginia, sponsored Haim and his parents to come to the United States.
“Since then, my parents have sponsored several other families and brought them to the United States as well,” Hem explains. “They’ve been able to create amazing lives because of this opportunity. I know that makes my parents happy to be able to come full circle. That’s part of what I want to create with this new body of work.”
This idea of interconnectedness, of the cycle of life, is evident throughout this new group of paintings. Each piece conveys its own narrative, its strong sense of place and time being the underlying strength, but they are also interconnected. There are recurring details, shared experiences, and repeated imagery. In “Upside Down,” a hooded figure stands against a backdrop of fishing boats and mountains. In another painting, “Direct Fire,” another hooded figure walks away from a chaotic scene, with fire trucks and downed power lines set against a smoky sky. Through Herm’s brush, the hoodie becomes a symbol, a subject that appears in urban and rural settings, seemingly Western and Eastern, a common thread that emphasizes the fundamental sense of familiarity we all share as humans, regardless of our background.
Every piece is different… so it’s hard to find a way to stick with it and keep repeating it.“
