Harvey Gordon: Recent Paintings
April 15 – June 17, 2012
For nearly fifty years, Harvey Gordon’s art has reflected his life by depicting resonant aspects of his visual experience. In simpler terms, he paints what moves him in what he sees around him. His approach builds on the artist’s direct, unimpeded connection to his or her surroundings that blossomed with the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements during the late nineteenth century. His technique integrates major characteristics of Post-Impressionism and moves forward from it by incorporating contemporary materials and technology; a highly analytic method of execution; and a personal sensibility shaped in part by the dynamic, perplexing, self-conscious twentieth century. He seeks to balance convincing representation with an open, painterly surface while simultaneously striving for maximum grace and refinement in his brushwork. After succumbing periodically to the pressures of both commerce and ego to produce larger paintings, he determined, about ten years ago, that his aesthetic goals were best achieved, and his long standing natural inclination was best satisfied, by working on a smaller, more modest and intimate scale. The paintings in this exhibition are the result of that decision.
Gordon’s paintings have been exhibited widely, received several awards, and been the subject of eight one person exhibitions in New York City galleries and six in Michigan museums, including Flint, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo. His work has been collected by museums, corporations, and private collectors in this country and abroad. His writing on art and culture has been published in several periodicals, and he taught art at the college level for thirty years.
Harvey Gordon was born in Flint in 1941 and attended Flint Public Schools, the University of Michigan, Mott Community College, Cranbrook Academy of Art (BFA), and the University of North Carolina (MFA). He has lived in Michigan and vacationed in northern Michigan almost all his life and has lived in Glen Arbor since 2004.
