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Geoffrey Gersten biography

Geoffrey GerstenEcce Homo: Geoffrey Gersten, An American Surrealist

Painting is who I am. There was always something in me that was going to grow into an artist. As a youth, two images profoundly impacted me; I will never forget the fear and distraction I felt when I first took in the eternal repose of the characters in Grant Wood’s great American Gothic. Then, I saw The Persistence of Memory, or Soft Watches, by Dali. I have a romance with the old memory.

I cannot remember many details of the painting, but I saw it differently then.

When I view the painting now, my mind goes hastily to work, examining perspective, composition, atmosphere. I cannot help but conduct automatic analysis. This is how I learned to create.

It was not until 2007, however, that I sat before a sheet of paper and began to arrange meaningful strokes upon it. I became so hooked, like nothing I had ever experienced. This was it! This was really, really it. I began to collect art books maniacally. My very first studies and infatuations were with the best abstract paintings and the entire impressionist movement. I found a pleasing similarity between the suggestive shapes of abstract expression, and the well timed strokes of an impressionist composition. I could not stop with mere visual suggestion, though. I was destined for more. I rediscovered Dali and explored

the Surrealist movement. Magritte, love and hate, will always be a part of my foundation as a visual composer.For I knew from the start that I was going to be a surrealist. To grow as an artist and learn how to paint, I would flip through documentary books on Turner, Velasquez, and Gainsborough until I encountered paintings so immensely beautiful that I could not turn the page. I would not turn the page for several days. I left books open on my bed, the floor, the desk, any surface around to display the paintings that I “reverse engineered” to discover the secrets of traditional technique in oil painting. I felt like my heart lived in those great paintings.

Through reference and practice, my artistic vision began to flourish.

My influences are as a “great cloud of witnesses,” a family of historical personalities: surrealist imagery, the gem-like quality and intense beauty of Bosch’s hell paintings. Andrew Wyeth’s quiet despair, Caravaggio’s dramatic entourage, Rogier van der Weyden’s passion and tears; Leonardo da Vinci’s excellence, Rembrandt’s heartsick truth, Odd Nerdrum’s strange mysteries; a dash of Philip C Curtis, Titian, Andrea Mantegna, and Albrecht Durer.

Painting is who I am.

-- Geoffrey Gersten

Geoffrey Gersten digs to the jar of Jelly Bellies for his colors, extolling surrealist fantasy.--Juxtapoz Magazine

Nerdalicious Article

james cowan of morpheus and geoffrey gersten  Morpheus is very excited to have added someone of Geoffrey Gersten's talent to our group of painters. Gersten is completely self-taught, and works exclusively in oils. His latest works feature an alternative universe of colorful, retro robots and spaceships, all rendered with tremendous talent and a delightfully whimsical imagination.--James Cowan

GEOFFREY GERSTEN PAINTING GALLERY:

Gersten painting Beekeeper Morpheus Surreal Art Gallery   GERSTEN Electric Sheep painting Morpheus Gallery   Gersten Superman Flyover Morpheus Art

GERSTEN Hang Loose painting Morpheus Surreal Art   GERSTEN The Mint painting Morpheus Gallery  GERSTEN The Day The World Didn't End Morpheus Gallery

Geoffrey Gersten

 

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