Gary Perrone featured Artist on moderndallas.net

Featured Artist

Gary Perrone

“Art is the discipline of my life. I want to live long enough
to create something truly great.”

After graduating from the University
of Hartford / Hartford Art School in
1983 with a BFA, Gary became a
disciple of graphic design and has
been a designer and art director
both in New York City and Dallas.
Moving to Texas in 1990, he currently
is Senior Art Director for FKM and
advertising agency in Dallas.

I learned I had HIV in 1987. There
were many people in the same
situation overtaken by
opportunistic diseases or simply
give in to the weight of living
with a virus that is essentially a
death sentence. I attribute my
survival to the determination
of my will. Denial is difficult, as
twice daily I must use viral
inhibitors that seem to prolong
my life. Over the past twenty
years I have learned to
neutralize the physical side
effects of the drugs and the
emotional side effects of the
disease itself through various
methods. One of them is to
channel as much of the mental
fallout into my art as I can manage,
each day. Art can be therapeutic,
but I prefer to think of it as a
metaphysical journey I take each
time I pick up a pencil, brush or
chisel.

Translating compartmentalized
thoughts into something that has its
own visual existence, like a painting
or sculpture, is the essence of creativity.
It is not enough for me
to copy what I see onto a canvas.
What is most important to me is the
manipulation of the medium in order
to capture what I see in when I am
in a deep meditative state.
This consists of the light, color and
rhythm in the darkness of my mind.
What I see is a concentration of all
my thoughts, words, moods, emotions
and memories. There is a sensation of
being vast as well as infinitesimally
small, and this is what I strive to capture.
Marking the canvas in
a repetitious manner and
establishing rhythms with color
allows me access to the internal
frequency that I equate with my
higher consciousness.

When I create, I intentionally
release excess mental activity.
As a painting unfolds, the colors
and patterns spread across the
canvas like viruses or crystals.
I imagine a healing process is taking
place as I encrust the canvas with
brushstrokes and thus clear my mind
of distractions and attachments.
The repetitive patterns of color that
emerge are like the ever-present
vibrations that I equate both with my
corporeal self and with my soul.

There's no real mystery about the materials. Acrylic paint and gel medium to make
it very thick and glossy. The thing for me is encrusting the canvas with brushstrokes
that have thick, defined edges. The surface becomes like a skin on something
more alien than any alligator. If my brush is properly loaded, the contrasting colors
will trail into one another and overlap in ways I find very compelling..

JustCause

Forgotten

Confession

Separation

Fighter

Convergence

Untitled 2009

more information

www.perronestudio.com

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