Paul Rhymer

Artist Statement on Painting

"When I decided to start painting again, last year, I picked up where I left off over 20 years ago. I hadn’t painted seriously since then. When I was painting back in the early days it was very illustrative, that’s why I feel like my painting style has a scientific illustration/sketchbook/studies feel to it. I like the water color…my grandmother, a member of the American Watercolor Association, sent me the paints I used in these works when I was living in Swaziland. I have supplemented these with Winsor Newton and whatever I can find."

Artist Statement on Scultpure

“I try to create sculptures that convey my feelings and experiences of animals and use them to express my feelings about the world around me. I feel like all of my life’s experiences have fed my career in art. My whole life has been spent outdoors hunting, fishing, paddling and bird watching. It has instilled a love of the natural world in me that gives me my world perspective. My career as a taxidermist and a model maker gave me the tools to express myself in sculpture—both the skills to actually sculpt and all the skills needed to produce a bronze cast from a clay sculpture. And the anatomical knowledge to portray my subject accurately.”

Biography

Paul comes from a family of artists and has drawn and painted his whole life. After receiving an Associate of Arts degree from a local college in 1984, he accepted a job at the Smithsonian Institution doing taxidermy and model making and retired in 2010. As a result of so much three-dimensional work in his museum job, his own personal artwork gradually began to transform from painting and drawing into sculpture. Being an avid birder, waterfowl hunter, and taxidermist gives him constant anatomy and behavioral learning experiences that inspire his sculpture.

Paul’s work has been exhibited in such prestigious art shows such as the National Sculpture Society, the Society of Animal Artists, and Birds in Art. His wildlife sculpture is at the National Zoo, National Museum of Natural History, the Denver Zoo, Woodson Art Museum, Hiraim Blauvelt Museum and various public buildings and parks and private collections thought the US. He is on the Boards of Directors for the Society of Animal Artists and the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art.

Visit Paul's Website