Damian Loeb  (American, 1970) 

Damian Loeb (American, b.1970) is a Hyperrealist painter who creates paintings that depict scenes as film stills that are emotionally distant. He grew up in Connecticut, but moved to New York City when he dropped out of high school in 1989. While in New York, Loeb became a self-taught painter.

His first solo show was at Mary Boone Gallery in New York City. He continued to have solo shows and participated in group shows at White Cube in London, Jablonka Gallerie in Cologne, and the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. In 2006, the Aldritch Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut hosted his retrospective. In his early works, Loeb used appropriated images from pop culture. After his solo show at Mary Boone, Loeb was sued for using copyrighted images, so he began removing all identifiable characters from the scenes he was painting. Loeb eventually began to take his own photographs, which were reminiscent of cinematic scenes. He calls his newer paintings, in which he uses his own photographs, personal film stills.

Loeb says that his favorite artist is Vermeer. His own obvious obsession with light echoes Vermeer’s light studies. The artist’s film influences include works by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Stephen Spielberg. In his 2011 show, Verschränkung and The Uncertainty Principle, at Acquavella Gallery, Loeb exhibited paintings that were based on his own photographs of his wife, Zoya. The nude images depict her in calm and intimate scenes. Loeb currently lives and works in New York City, where he is represented by Acquavella Gallery.