DREW HIXSON

 “Care is not separate from my work,

it is the medium.”

Drew Hixson

Across his practice, Drew Hixson explores art as an act of care. Whether working through portraiture, abstraction, or botanical forms, his work centers on psychological presence, memory, and the quiet labor of attention. Hixson treats making as a relational process, using gesture, material, and repetition to hold space for vulnerability, healing, and connection over time.

An abstract painting of a woman with long hair, dancing on a stage with a crowd in the background. The woman is in a crouched position with her arms extended and is painted in warm colors like orange, yellow, and red, with a dark background.
A grayscale painting of a man riding a horse through a grassy field with trees in the background.
A painting of a nude person kneeling on the ground, with the person holding a cloth or garment over their shoulder. The background is a dark, cloudy sky, and the surface they are kneeling on is textured and gray.
A colorful painting of a still life with three flower arrangements in vases. The background is yellow. The left arrangement has purple flowers in a red vase, the middle arrangement has yellow and red flowers in a tall, patterned glass vase, and the r
Black and white painting of a horse in snow, facing slightly to the right.
Colorful stained glass artwork of a person's profile with flowers in their hair, set against a green and blue background.
An aerial view painting of a forested shoreline with vibrant autumn trees, two dark boathouses, and blue water with waves curling onto the beach.
Abstract painting with horizontal and vertical lines in shades of brown, black, and blue.
A painted portrait of a young man with slicked-back hair, gazing thoughtfully into the distance.
A young boy with blonde hair, wearing a colorful sweater, stands next to a brown horse, holding its bridle, on a grassy landscape with a cloudy sky.
A woman with short brown hair and a braid, wearing a colorful striped dress, sitting outdoors on grass and looking up.
Final Arielle and Lilly .jpeg

Drew Hixson is a Rhode Island–based painter whose work begins with care, not as a theme added on at the end, but as the medium itself. For Hixson, care is the way a painting is built, how it is revisited, and how time is allowed to move through the surface. His studio practice is rooted in process, patience, and repetition, treating painting as a space where healing can happen slowly and honestly. In his abstract works, Hixson explores the physical act of making as a form of repair, building layered compositions that hold evidence of growth, emotion, and resilience. The marks are not meant to be perfect, they are meant to be lived in. Each layer becomes a record of returning, of trying again, and of learning how to work with what is present rather than against it.

Alongside abstraction, Hixson paints portraits of loved ones as an extension of that same care. These works are intimate and personal, focused on the quiet weight carried in a face, a gesture, or a gaze. Portraiture becomes a way to honor connection and memory, capturing not only what a person looks like, but what it feels like to love them, miss them, or know them deeply. Whether abstract or figurative, Hixson’s paintings ask viewers to slow down and pay attention, to recognize that vulnerability can be held with tenderness, and that care is not separate from art making, but the reason it matters.