Gavin's profile
I aspire to be a painterly painter. My work seeks to celebrate the tension that is inherent in trying to capture an infinitely multifaceted reality through primitive mark making on a flat surface. Cave paintings come to mind. I am particularly fascinated by the boundary between representational and abstract painting. I admire Richard Diebenkorn’s work for it’s brave excursions back and forth across this borderline.
Throughout a childhood of exploration in countries of the Middle East, thanks to my father’s work as a diplomat, I was fascinated by the common miracle of vision through light and color. Like children everywhere, I sought to understand the mysterious world around me through all my senses. But I feel that vision became my primary way of processing the bewilderingly kaleidoscopic scenes I encountered from Athens to Baghdad, Amman, Kuwait, Cairo and Teheran. Surrounded by languages and cultures that I couldn’t understand, the simple act of visual organization became my way of coping.
One abiding interest that arose from this visual approach understanding places is in architecture and urban design. After I returned to live in this country for my last year of high school, I found my way to classes at the Boston Architectural Center and to the Architectural Design program at the Massachusetts College of Art. After completing my Bachelors degree there, I went to the University of Oregon for my Masters degree in Architecture.
After working as an Architect in New York City for six years, I shifted to ownership of a modular cabinetry business for the next thirty years. I have now retired to Baltimore, to be near my wife’s family, and am able to focus on painting as a way to celebrate that miraculous phenomena of visual comprehension through light and color.
