Rob Loebell is a contemporary American sculptor. His work is primarily in different varieties of wood. Inspired by relief carvings on ancient architecture, he updates that idea using images from photographs he takes, or from images from the archives of historic sites. The carvings are a way to bring a flat image back into dimension, and the archival carvings are a way of having a conversation with the past. The surfaces of the sculptures are often burned and painted to suggest a black and white photograph, or colored with encaustic or oil paint. Loebell was born in Philadelphia in 1955, graduated from Central High School (the alma mater of Eakins), and Tyler School of Art, Temple University, with a BFA in Sculpture in 1976. He relocated to Connecticut in 1985 where he maintains his art studio. His work has been exhibited at the United Nations, Governors Island, NY Sculptors Guild Gallery and Plaxall Gallery in New York; the Mystic Art Museum, Silvermine Gallery and Weir Farm in Connecticut; Painted Bride in Philadelphia; Pearl Street Gallery and Real Art Ways in Hartford. He has received grants from the Greater Hartford Arts Council, and has won awards from shows such as Art of the Northeast (Silvermine), and Black and White at the Mystic Art Museum.
