Statement:
Growing up I was only interested in learning about two things, drawing and God. The list has not changed much since then.   For me I have never tired of drawing and painting the figure. People are fascinating. I try to capture in my paintings and drawing more than just a facade of the figure. I try to catch the persona of the person, something you would only learn about that person after knowing them for a while. Catching the perfection of the human form is highly rewarding and drawing the human form is the acid test of one’s abilities. And, every artist is always a student when it comes to drawing the complexity of the human figure.    I start my artwork like someone constructing a building, from the foundation up.   Drawing is the inner structure of figurative painting, the skeleton that supports the finished art like the steel that supports the building. I start with a gesture drawing to capture the essence or the pose and at the same time I plan the composition of the pose as to how it will fit on the paper. I use soft vine charcoal for this phase because it’s so flexible, and I can quickly complete a range of values and rework and change everything quickly.  I also like to work standing up at the easel so I can move back and forth to check on the proportions. I have worked with pastels for some time to complete my paintings often working over acrylic washes but lately I have discovered oil sticks. Oil sticks have all the fun of drawing with pastels but have the added advantage of drying to a hard finish in a few hours. Paper is the support I use most often which I buy in large rolls and trim to about 40” X 60”.  Henri de Toulouse/Lautrec, Jerome Witkin, Harvey Dinnerstine and Egon Schiele are artists that I have found inspiring.

Biography:
Roger Hicks is an award-winning graphic designer, instructor and founder of his own company, Courtroom Graphics.   Hicks has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Michigan’s Wayne State University and a masters degree in adult education from Eastern Carolina University in North Carolina.   For a number of years he had been an instructor of graphic design and illustration at the Henry Ford Community College in Detroit, Michigan. Hicks also served on the schools Curriculum Advisory Committee. He also taught computer illustration at Detroit’s Center for Creative Studies.   As a computer graphics artist for the Detroit Free Press editorial department, he created charts, graphics, and illustrations for the paper on a daily basis on deadline. He also researched, wrote, designed, and illustrated a weekly stand-alone graphic on health and nutrition.    He started his own graphic design company in 1976 to create demonstrative graphics for law firms to help jurors and judges visualize complex testimony in commercial and industrial accidents.    Roger Hicks moved to Charlotte in 2001 to teach full time at The Art Institute of Charlotte where he currently teaches computer illustration, advertising, drawing and perspective, color theory, fundamentals of design, 3-D design, Corporate I.D, and life drawing. Roger is married and has three adult children and seven grandchildren.