One of Australia’s most popular artists, Robert Hagen was featured last year for the first time America in Volume 2, Number 3 of International Fine Art Collector. Since then, his American career has taken fire making him one of the most sought after artist ever published by the magazine. This phenomenon has led him across the United States to answer queries from art publishers and galleries in many states, and, as the artist he is, along the way his response to America is being recorded on canvas.

“In the last year,” said Hagen, “I’ve had many opportunities to travel around this immense country, and quiet bluntly, I’ve been staggered by the diversity of images. The mind boggles with what’s available here in the United States to paint. I’m starting in a very careful way to capture some of the things I’ve seen, and in particular scenes that are absolutely inspirational like Sedona, Arizona, which I suppose to most American artists is old hat, but for an Australian like me, it’s an extremely rich painting source area. One could imagine all sorts of things happening there.”

“To go from Sedona to Ohio where my painting Frog Pond was conjured up, the difference is incredible. Frog Pond was painted beside on the tributaries to the Miami River near New Bremmen. It’s one of those little spots that everyone would whiz past at 70 miles per hour and never give two hoots about, but it’s one that definitely has it’s own magic.

“So far I’ve witnessed the awesome magnificence of some of the things America holds, yet been inspired by the most simple and apparently innocuous spots as well. I’ve been traveling and absorbing and appreciating. “America’s a very pro art country with a strong underpinning of humility in its people. It’s a very easygoing environment where there’s a lot of giving. There’s one thing I’ve learned and that is to Americanize my accent a little in order to communicate with the locals. Even the simple task of buying a loaf of bread can become a nightmare if you use the Australian vernacular
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“Life here is not much different than Australia. For the first six months I felt differences, but they’re really to do with mechanical aspects of life like driving and speech, hours of business and things like that. Now that I’m accustomed to those aspects I feel there’s no difference to how I lived in Australia.