Bio
Gar is an emerging fine art abstract photographer and painter. His passion in his art and in his life is to "Create the Invisible, Visible". He takes the everyday ordinary patterns in life and changes the way we see them, the way we feel them. He would say, “My photographs and paintings finds me and I become the vehicle through which the art finds its way to the print and to the canvas.” His paintings follow his fine art abstract photography with a little more freedom to create on a blank canvas from the images in his mind.
Even though Gar has been a photographer most of his life, very few people have ever seen his fine art photography. He is better known for his interior, architecture and landscape architecture photography. Gar started painting in January of 2017 after a number of people that had seen his art photography encouraged him to take up painting. "I have always wanted to paint, but never took the time." After a couple of months, Gar found his voice in painting and continues to explore this creative side of his art.
Note: Under the Galleries menu, all works are original photographs except those in the Paintings Gallery. On the Home page, works of art alternate between Paintings and Photographs. When you place your cursor over any image on this site, you will see the name/number of the work and it's size.
Gar grew up on a small farm in Pennsylvania. There he learned about hard work and the connection we all have with the land and mother earth. His love of the outdoors and nature prompted him to engage in an education in Landscape Architecture with a degree from Penn State University. From there he worked in photography, design and media production for over 35 years. Gar was originally drawn to photography when he was very young using a Kodak Brownie. He fell in love with the notion of stopping time and taking another, closer look at everyday life.
After college, he used photography as a creative outlet starting strictly with black and white. Mostly self taught, when he moved to Southern California in the mid 70’s, he studied photography under Arthur Taussig and John Upton at Orange Coast College. Not seeking a degree, Gar was free to explore at his own pace, in his own way.
He noticed he would focus on the things most people never see. “I am moved more by exploring the details of the obvious, then I am of the obvious itself.” After about 5 years of concentrating on black and white, Gar wanted a new challenge, Color! His move to Color was strictly about Color. He would seek the most color, saturated images to make color the subject of his photographs.
Even though Gar’s photography has always been a creative outlet, today, as an emerging artist, he is more interested in pure art from the camera, exploring other ways of seeing the world through a camera lens. “I am always looking for what the camera can do when I give it free reign with no expectations.” And now that Gar is painting, his work kinda follows the quote from Pablo Picasso, "I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else."
The inspiration for Gar’s paintings comes partly from his abstract photo works and partly from patterns in his daily life. He took what he learned about creating abstract art from his photo works and applied it to his painting. In the same way Gar would find palettes of color in the everyday world for his photographic art, he starts each painting with a selection of colors on his palette as the beginning of a painted work that will evolve as paint is applied to the canvas.
“I love what I do!”