"Spotted Hyena" Painting

Aimée Hoover's work hangs in collections across the United States, Canada, Europe, and South America, and her exhibition history spans venues from the Torrance Art Museum to London's Gallery@oxo, where Aimée Rolin Hoover participated in the internationally recognized Sketch for Survival exhibition in 2023. She received the Allan Lay Memorial Award at the Palos Verdes Art Center in 2025, recognition from the regional fine art community that reflects the sustained seriousness of her practice. ARTIST STATEMENT I grew up trying to befriend things that didn’t want to be caught. Ravens, raccoons, feral dogs. This meant spending long stretches of time being very still, waiting. So when my patience finally paid off, it was truly magical. In those moments I wasn’t thinking about yesterday or planning for tomorrow. I was just there. Completely. What I've come to understand is that animals have an unparalleled capacity to pull human consciousness into the present tense. Because they operate entirely outside the mental architecture of worry and regret. They simply are. And in witnessing them, we briefly become that too. When we lock eyes with a deer or coyote for a brief second, something shifts in us before our conscious mind has any say in it. They snap us out of rumination and into wonder. This is what I’m attempting to recreate in my work—the felt conditions of these encounters. The quality of attention they demand, the involuntary slowing down, the specific emotional tone each animal carries. The animals themselves are the magic. I want my work to simply hold the door open to them.