Meet Gordon Studer | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gordon Studer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gordon, what role has risk played in your life or career?
My artwork is created by taking risks. A painting can reach a point where it’s not quite working and some bold moves need to be made to disrupt it. Sometime the part you love the most must be painted over or perhaps a unique spontaneous mark needs to be made. In my workshops I try to get participants to get out of their comfort zone, try something contrary to what they normally do. I’ve developed a series of exercises that can help them take risks and can lead to remarkable surprises in their work. I’m always looking for those interesting random mistakes in my paintings that I would have never thought to create. So the practice of taking a risk, then stepping back and access is repeated again and again, leading to the end result. I have found that this practice of risk taking in my work translates to risk taking in my life outside the studio. Life imitating art!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Sometimes it takes a long time to get back home. I graduated from Penn State with a fine arts degree. Then made my way to the West coast to work for the San Francisco Examiner newspaper as an illustrator / designer. I eventually made the move to go out on my own as a freelance illustrator . At the time I was one of the first illustrators working digitally, even being a beta tester for the Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. It was an exciting time being on the forefront of a technology. After twenty years as a freelance illustrator I realized I had been living a shadow career, what I had always wanted to be was a fine artist. The past three years has been an absolute leap of faith moving toward my fine art. The pandemic actually was a blessing for me. A good friend in LA offered a studio and a place to live and just paint for six months. The pandemic hit just as I arrived and the six months turned into a year. All I did was paint for a full year, immersing myself into my painting daily. This lead to multiple opportunities with showrooms, galleries, art sales and even being excepted into a show at the de Young Museum. Wow, it was on!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m fairly new to my studio and Marin County CA, so if I had a friend visit it would be more about exploring together. I’ve always worked and lived in very urban areas so living in my new lush surroundings by the bay and at the base of Mount Tamalpais is pretty awesome. My new studio is in Sausalito CA and I’m living a short distance away in Belvedere. Perhaps a morning hiking on the mountain then a quick ferry into San Fransisco and checkout the Farmers Market at the Ferry Building then on to the SFMOMA to explore art. We’ll catch a ferry back to Tiburon and have dinner on the bay at The Bungalow Kitchen – maybe a little dancing upstair afterwards. Yeah that sounds like a good day!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Ok, I know this might be a little cliche, but my mom and dad. As a very young child my mother exposed me to art, museums, theater and the wonders of the world through books. She loved art. And my father was an architect turned behavior scientist. He was a professor / dean at universities, so we were always living in idyllic university campus environments. Although a challenging path they both were supportive of my art career choice.

Website: https://www.gordonstuder.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gordonstuder/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gordon.studer

Other: https://www.gordonstuder.com/workshops

Image Credits
Profile and workshop photos: Bart Nagel Photography