Robert Bissell

Robert Bissell grew up in England and retains his love of art, rural life, Celtic legends, and panoramic landscapes. His keen interest in visuals began at a young age while documenting life around him through photographs. After studying graphic design and obtaining a Masters Degree from The Royal College of Art in London, Robert moved to America and began a successful career in retail advertising. After 15 years, he decided to devote all his time to painting and sculpture.

In his amazing paintings, Bissell creates and transports us to a completely different atmosphere from modern day life and invites us to learn more about ourselves. In his work, the world of animals is a mirror for human existence, self-definition, and self-reflection. Yet these are not mere children’s tales. His animals have a metaphysical importance to our own spiritual well being. Lured into a realm, devoid of humans, the animal characters make us consider our own condition and place in nature. “Bissell’s work disarms by narrating vitally grown-up and urgent allegories in the guise of child-like humor,” William Zimmer, art critic from The New York Times warns. Conjuring up something simultaneously real and unreal, these images appeal to the intellectual child in all of us.

Bissell’s work is a reflection on the environment, life, death, renewal, and stages of transition. His landscapes offer no familiar frame or reference. The viewer can wander freely into the scene and consider it according to their own sensibility. These are not romantic landscapes in the traditional sense. Rather, they allow an experience of the sublime, not from what may be, but from what it is.

Robert Bissell believes his work is successful when it takes someone’s breath away, even for a second. It brings them out of themselves to a place of different awareness, somewhere quiet and beautiful.