Ohio Wesleyan Fine Arts Professor Honored by Ohio Arts Council
Frank Hobbs Earns Individual Excellence Award for Contemporary Landscape Paintings
Frank Hobbs
DELAWARE, Ohio – Ohio Wesleyan University faculty member Frank Hobbs has earned an Individual Excellence Award and $5,000 grant from the Ohio Arts Council for a portfolio of paintings that reflect his interpretation of the contemporary landscape.
Hobbs, an OWU associate professor of fine arts, said the award-winning artworks “reflect my long-standing fascinations with the contemporary landscape, particularly the ways that humans imprint their values, ideals, and desires on the natural environment.”
According to the Ohio Arts Council, award winners are selected following a “competitive application process focusing solely on evidence and merit of past artistic work and an open panel review conducted by nationally recognized professionals [designed] to ensure that only the most exceptional individuals receive funding.”
Hobbs said he is honored by the award and impressed by the work of the Ohio Arts Council, a state agency created in 1965 to “foster and encourage the development of the arts and assist the preservation of Ohio’s cultural heritage.”
“For me, receiving the Individual Excellence in the Arts Award is a much appreciated recognition of my work by an impartial and highly qualified jury of peers,” said Hobbs, M.F.A. “Also, being a relative newcomer to Ohio, such recognition in a new region is particularly rewarding. In the years in which I’ve lived and worked in Ohio, it’s been very gratifying to see all of the ways that the Ohio Arts Council promotes a strong culture of art and creativity.”
Hobbs, who joined the Ohio Wesleyan faculty in 2007, teaches painting, drawing, figure drawing, and 2D design. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) and his master’s degree from American University in Washington, D.C.
In addition to the Ohio Arts Council award, Hobbs has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. His work is in corporate and private collections around the world and has been shown in the American Embassies of Ankara, Turkey; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and Bermuda.
Of his outdoor landscapes, Hobbs explains: “The process of painting for me begins as a kind of soliloquy through which I work out my fascinations with the contemporary landscape and the connections that tie me to my own place in the world. … The challenge is to distill the essential color, form, and space from the ‘blooming, buzzing confusion’ of nature using only my eyes and the language of painting.”
Read more about Hobbs and see examples of his artworks at frank-hobbsart.com. Read more about the Ohio Arts Council at www.oac.state.oh.us and more about the Ohio Wesleyan Department of Fine Arts at https://www.owu.edu/academics/departments-programs/department-of-fine-arts/.
Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers 86 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world experience. OWU’s 1,750 students represent 46 U.S. states and territories and 43 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.