Herb Fillmore III has painted since 2009 while being a data scientist. He is an autodidact with limited formal art education. While, currently in his “OG salad days” of styles and topics, bold colors are a constant. Recently, expressionist/fauve-like landscapes and interiors have mostly replaced abstracts.

The masters, styles, and techniques of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s are his primary sources for his education and inspiration— Cezanne, Matisse, early Picasso and Kandinsky— yet he returns often to O’Keefe and Diebenkorn. Although he could be classified as a contemporary colorist, a “retinal” painter of decorative canvases, he is fond of a recent gallery visitor’s comment: “your paintings make me feel, they make me think, they make me happy.”

He is curious and experimental-- each day learning more about the fundamentals with a concentration on attitude, seeing, approach, materials, and techniques to impart energy and narrative to his work. He hopes his viewers find beauty and meanings that are new and inspiring in his paintings with the changing light and their changing lives.

He is a member of the Nyack Art Collective, the Edward Hopper House, and the Arts Council of Rockland. He is also a curated guest artist at the Piermont Flywheel in February 2023 and is a recipient of a Westchester Co. “Arts Alive” Grant on Cezanne. His artworks are in the homes of collectors across the U.S., and he is hoping to accelerate his contributions as an  artist in 2023.

A note about the intersections of data science and art:

Science and art have many intersections, not the least is in materials, but also in style. An old metaphor is the artist as an archaeologist patiently dusting away debris to reveal the amazing artifact. The practice of data science is also a good preparation for art and vice versa— primarily in having a tolerance for ambiguity and a facility with blending skill sets, generating hypotheses and following hunches on the way to finding the “truth.”

Data science is about pattern recognition.  Finding and weaving the threads in the unknown is instinctual for Herb now. He is restless if he feels a painting is not “of a whole.” Following a plan to find those threads whether in science or art, he has learned to pause and respect the serendipities that can lead to new, unexpected narratives and beauty. This happens in all labs. (These are the “happy accidents” painters have talked about for centuries.) In a way, an artist’s studio is a lab and, yes, there are procedures and rules informing the artist’s way,  but sometimes unexpected  things will grow in the petri dish and are just there when you walk away for a moment and return with fresh eyes.

P.S. There is another, now deceased, not directly related, Herb Fillmore painter in California. The “other” Herb Fillmore was quite accomplished and successful, and Herb III seeks distinction on the web by using his given suffix, III.