Touching the Intangible

touching the intangible

the art of

Gregory Gillespie

touching the intangible

the Art of Gregory Gillespie at Schantz Galleries In 1986, Gregory Gillespie wrote that he found ... “the world bewildering and perversely complex. Life in all its forms seems to me unspeakably strange and, at its heart, there is mystery of the most incredible kind. To me, the jewel, the center, the most radiant of all mysteries is the human mind. Thoughts are alive –they pulse with life! Dreams, perceptions, memories, desires are all crazily, electrically alive and transparent as light, weightless, constantly changing, blending one into the other in a seamless continuum.”

Gillespie’s paintings are the well-spring of his “radiant” mind, the result of a meditative process in which he sought heightened spiritual awareness and accessed deep chasms of creativity. Mining art historical traditions and mystical philosophies, Gillespie touches the intangible and reveals life at its most real— raw and provocative, sometimes disquieting, often perplexing, and always fascinating.

Provincetown Dunes 1999

The lone figure in this landscape looks contemplatively upon the placid sea under a bright blue sky. Italian Renaissance artists first used landscapes in their work to reflect the mood of their protagonists and add depth to their paintings. Gillespie received two FulbrightHays grants to travel to Italy to study the work of Renaissance master Masaccio (1401-1428), and lived and worked in Florence and Rome for eight years. The tripartite symmetry created by the three sand dunes reflects this education. Gillespie spent many of the last summers of his life teaching a workshop at the Fine Arts Center in Provincetown. When not teaching or painting, he would go to the beach with his family. The photograph of Gillespie that inspired this painting was taken by his wife during one such visit to the dunes.

10.75 x 33�

Gillespie’s paintings were rarely pre-determined; rather he would combine fastidiously applied oil paint with the randomness of assemblage, build up and scrape off layers as he worked in dialogue with the materials until the painting revealed itself. He had the chops of a Realist, but where Realism is content with verisimilitude, Gillespie’s precision was the foundation for continued exploration. He had the formal knowledge of the Italian Renaissance masters, and from them he also took a predilection for the allegorical. He had the sensibility of a Surrealist, but more than just wresting out his dreams he sought to reach a higher plane of understanding. He had the fervor of an Abstract Expressionist but used painting to do more than merely express emotion.

From portraits to landscapes—with riffs on Hindu and Catholic art in between—Gillespie’s artwork eludes answers or simple interpretations.

Instead it awakens our desire to understand the great mysteries of the world and the complexities of our own existence.

Jeanne Koles is an art historian who does writing for museums and the cultural sector in New England.

Woman and Self Portrait of the Artist 1999

Gillespie regularly painted strikingly raw self-portraits but also commonly inserted his likeness into other paintings, as in this fantastical landscape. This work takes the humble naturalism of the Flemish allegorical landscape artist, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569) and sets it aflame. The figure in the foreground toils on the earth just as the smaller figure in the middle seems to be painting the blazing red sky—analogizing the creation of art with the cultivation of the earth and cogitating on the existence of the divine in man. The serpentine element in the lower right has myriad symbolic interpretations that range from guardianship to foreboding.

10.25 x 19.75�

Mandala with Shears undated

Sacred Hindu and Buddhist art is often in the form of a mandala, traditionally a square with four gates around a center circle, whose purpose is to aid its maker in meditation. Gillespie’s mandala is his own private shrine, created with symbols and objects whose purpose only he was meant to truly understand. In the upper corner is a dancing Shiva, the third deity of the Hindu triad of Gods who is known to destroy the dark and make way for the light.

Two phantasmagoric nude women and a representation of the artist in the nude complete the upper register. In the lower section, Gillespie draws a deity whose snake-like appendages swirl, twirl, and intertwine with the overlaid photograph of a woman. Raised in a strict Catholic household, Gillespie came to terms with the multiplicity of spiritual pursuits in the world later in life.

33 x 19�

English Landscape (with Peggy) 1995

The foreshortened perspective of English Landscape (with Peggy) is in complete contrast to the single vanishing point of the Renaissance masters that Gillespie studied, but like a tripartite Renaissance altar it is divided into three sections delineated by the rolling hills. Also like the Renaissance paintings, the meaning of the work is in its allegorical details. Gillespie’s second wife, Peggy, stands rooted in the earth like the tree of life. Because we know that Gillespie treats the landscape like sacred ground for self-examination, we can imagine the important role that his wife played in his meditative pursuits.

13.125 x 33�

Horses on Red w/ Tower 1988 - 1989

The smooth background of Horses on Red with Tower is juxtaposed with textural elements: agitated marks, crumpled tape, overlaid objects such as a photograph of the artist. Horses with exaggerated limbs and female nudes with hyperbolic features sit flatly on a surface in which proper pictorial perspective has been abandoned. The nude astride the horse may be an allegory for the powerful female force; she is at once a warrior, a life-giver, and the balancing other half to the male. Horses also have a powerful sexual association, and Gillespie often imbued his paintings with an eroticism that rebelled against his strict Catholic upbringing. Is this tower the protective citadel from which the female exerts her power (she is, in fact, stomping on another nude), or is this Babel, in which the male and female (or the male and female parts of ourselves) battle to understand one another?

20 x 12.25�

Elephant (and Rider) undated

This jewel-like medallion features an elephant reminiscent of Ganesha, one of the five prime Hindu deities—the “Remover of Obstacles”—who also appears in Buddhism and other religious sects. Traditionally Ganesha is formed of an elephant head (denoting the soul) with a human body (denoting earthly existence). Gillespie’s elephant is a hybrid of a different sort with the legs of a pawed animal poised to spring agilely in a way an elephant never could. Also diverging from traditional images of Ganesha is the distorted, androgynous rider astride Gillespie’s elephant. Is this the artist, who studied Hinduism and Buddhism (and their art) later in life, attempting to create his own unique transport into the spiritual world?

16.5 x 18.5”

AP Self Portrait

17”x 12”

Gregory Gillespie 1936 -2000

1954-60 Studied at The Cooper Union for Advancement of Science and Art, NY 1960-62 B.A. and M.A., San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA 1962-63 Lived and worked, Florence, Italy 1964-70 American Academy, Rome, Italy 1970-2000 Lived and worked in Belchertown, MA

Awards 1994 Augustus St. Gaudens Award 1967 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 1966 Chester Dale Fellowship 1965 Chester Dale Fellowship 1964 Chester Dale Fellowship 1963 Fullbright-Hays Full Grant 1962 Fullbright-Hays Full Grant

Public Collections Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME Creative Arts Center, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, GA Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University, Park, IL Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Nebraska Art Association, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA Sara Roby Foundation Collection, New York, NY Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of NC, Greensboro, NC Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Landscape at Dusk

etching VII/XXII

10.5 x 21�

touching the intangible the art of

Gregory Gillespie

Mandala with Shears (detail)

S chant z G alleries c o n t e m p o r a r y

a r t

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