Working with the particular qualities of Maine light, has long been a primary focus of Jill Hoy’s plein air oil paintings. Strong composition, rhythm, gesture, pattern, energy, power of place and soul are also primary concerns. Each of these paintings has a story and a distinct reason for being chosen as a painting site. 

Hoy has summered on Deer Isle, Maine, since she was ten. Somerville Mass. is her home November through May. In addition to 6 Connecticut towns, she has called Swarthmore, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; Michigan; California and New York City home. She earned her B.A. from University of California, Santa Cruz, from where she received a distinguished alumni award in 2011. 

She has run the Jill Hoy Gallery in Stonington, Maine, since 1986. She exhibits with Portland Art Gallery, and in past years; Gallery at South West Harbor, Schomburg Gallery in Santa Monica, O’Mell Gallery, St James, London, Chase Gallery, Boston, as well as many more shows nationally and internationally.  She has paintings in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art, Harvard Business School, Boston Public Library, Fidelity, John Hancock, and Art in the Embassies collections, among 700+ other private, public, and corporate collections. Her paintings are included in Carl Little’s and Edgar Allen Beem’s books on Maine art. She has been featured in Maine Home and Design, Yankee Magazine and also featured in Down East with her husband, painter, Jon Imber.   

“Jon Imber’s Left Hand,” a Maine Masters film was made in 2014. It is a deeply humane and eloquent window on their life together as two painters. Jon died of ALS in 2014. They have a 25-year old son, Gabe Imber.  

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