Robert Lohman

Robert M. Lohman is a Southampton-based artist and interior designer known for atmospheric paintings of the sea and sky.

“Living near the beach I’m aware of how close the water is and how the world of vapor mixed with light can blur the line between earth and sky. Water can be soft and clouds can have structure. The glow in the vicinity of having water on two or three sides is magical,” he says. “When I started painting at the beach, a good friend who owned a gallery in Bridgehampton said ‘Not another wave painting!’ As a color field painter I thought maybe I don’t need the waves, or even a horizon line.”

Lohman counts J. M. W. Turner, Thomas Cole, and Mark Rothko as major influences.

“I love the crazy energy of late Turner paintings and how vague he gets about where the sky ends and the base of water or earth begins. From Rothko I hope to capture stillness. Even his bright color paintings have a quiet, chill quality for me. And Cole’s clarity of color and deep glow has a depth of field that can open up a room like a window.”

Beyond painting, Lohman is known for his many community and design projects in the Hamptons, notably his design for “Eddie,” a 2300-pound steel sculpture created for the Southampton Dog Park, photography works, and his pop-art-inspired prints based on Justin Timberlake’s Sag Harbor mugshot.

He is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he focused on Interior Architecture. His early work in 1980’s New York led to assembling and installing corporate and private art collections, which he continues today. Lohman has shown at Peter Marcell Gallery and MM Fine Art in Southampton, and Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor.