Jill Hoy is a Maine painter whose vital landscapes and expressive figurative work reflect a life deeply engaged with place, imagination, and observation. Dividing her time between Stonington, Somerville, and New York City, she creates two complementary bodies of work: plein air paintings rooted in the coastal Maine environment, and studio-based compositions drawn from memory and symbolic narrative.Jill earned her B.F.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz and studied at the New York Academy of Art. Since 1965, she has been a regular resident of Deer Isle, where the natural surroundings—seascapes, gardens, architecture—inform her visual language. Working on location, she responds to the changing light and atmosphere of the Maine coast. “The light in Maine is crystal clear,” she says, “with a sharp-edged clarity and a gem-like quality.” The resulting paintings shimmer with saturated color, rhythmic pattern, and a strong sense of time and place.Her studio paintings, often inspired by years of sketchbooks and impressions from urban life, explore the internal landscape. They blend memory and imagination, sometimes incorporating symbolic, surreal, or conflicting imagery. “The studio paintings are created between myself and the canvas,” she explains. “The Maine paintings are the result of myself, the canvas, and reality.”Jill works primarily in oil, though recent explorations in watercolor have added gestural freedom and immediacy to her process. Her work is shaped by decades of looking, drawing, and deep engagement with the visual world. Much of her practice is about synthesis—between places, between painting and drawing, and between intention and spontaneity. Her paintings offer a vibrant, evolving record of life along the Maine coast and beyond.Learn more about Jill's artistic journey on Radio Maine.