January 31 - March 30, 2025

H-E-B Gallery

Reception Saturday, February 8th, 5-7pm

Painting

Fort Worth-based fine artist Billy Hassell, who was recently referred to as “Mother Nature’s Stylist” by The New York Times, has been showing his artwork since the 1980s in galleries across the country. His bold colors and patterns inspired by nature have captured the imagination of collectors throughout the nation. Few artists use color as effectively as Billy, and his graphically illustrative style contributes to his work’s emotional punch. 

Elite museums in Texas such as the Dallas Museum of Art, the Modern in Fort Worth, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Menil Collection in Houston, among others, have acquired Billy’s oil paintings for their permanent collections. His work hangs in a US Embassy, the University of Texas, the offices of HBO, and the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

National art magazines such as Art News, Southwest Art, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have featured Billy’s paintings, as well as many regional publications such as the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, D magazine, and 360 West. His artwork has also been displayed on several television shows.

Because of his dedication to conservation, Billy has donated art throughout his career to conservation organizations. The Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservation and Audubon have used his artwork to raise money for environmental causes and celebrate the beauty of nature.

In addition to oil painting, Billy has collaborated with a number of master printers to produce numerous editions of color lithographs. This increasingly rare and labor-intensive form of printmaking has been and continues to be sought after by collectors internationally.

Billy’s talents are not limited to the canvas. He has produced and designed large-scale stained-glass murals, one of which is a large floor medallion for the DFW airport, another, a 50-foot mural at a fire station in Fort Worth. He has also worked on various public art projects as well.

Academia has been an ongoing interest throughout Billy’s life as well. He earned his BFA from Notre Dame, followed by his MFA from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Upon completion of his graduate degree, Notre Dame invited him to as a professor to teach etching and watercolor. He has also taught a variety of art classes - painting, drawing, printmaking, and studio practices - at universities including Davidson College in North Carolina.

Billy is regularly invited to people’s ranches and other landscapes across the country (and on occasion, out of the country) to capture the unique beauty of private places for their owners. Most recently, he completed a mural at a ranch in the Texas Hill Country that was featured in the Wall Street Journal.

Today, Billy’s work continues to show the natural world charged with life, energy and movement. On canvases that loom larger than life, both in size and vibrancy of subject, his distinctive use of color and stylized natural elements and animals reveal why he has become such a highly respected painter.

Artist Statement:

My work has always had an ecological consciousness to it and has almost always featured birds as primary subjects. When asked once “Why birds?” I responded, “The presence (or absence) of birds, like the canary in the coal mine, is an indicator of a healthy environment.”

My sentiments have become more acute in our current political world. Ignoring or denying that such things as climate change exist in order to rationalize environmental negligence has placed our natural resources under siege which has, in turn, inspired in me a deeper motivation to address these issues in a more direct way. At the same time I want my work to be provocative and visually engaging.

The show features new oil paintings and a group of new lithographs. Some of the new paintings feature extinct birds of Texas along with several species that are endangered or are on the brink of extinction. Others have broader cultural reference.

In choosing the title, SHADOWS, for the exhibition I wanted to suggest all of the various meanings of the word, both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun, I want to suggest silhouettes, shapes, profiles as well as the proximity to sadness and gloom; as a verb, to suggest a shadow cast and also to follow and observe.