About Robert Hightower

Robert Hightower is a self-taught painter based in the Bay Area who began painting in 2021. His work has since been shown in the de Young Open, across multiple solo exhibitions, and in more than fifteen group shows.

In 2024, he was named the first recipient of a grant from Bader + Simon. The gallery has since been building a new space in Cincinnati, and he is fortunate enough to be holding a solo show there in January 2027.

His style was never a single discovery. It formed slowly, over years of repetition, into a method he could return to: paint, edit, revise. Revision isn’t about covering anything up. Each layer is built to complement what came before it, not erase it. That’s why older marks are often left to surface through the newest ones. A painting holds its own history in plain sight, because a person can’t fully hide who they once were.