American Artist

Grew Up in Wyoming.
Made It in LA.
Still Working.

 

Over twenty-five years in. The work is figurative, cinematic, and rooted in the American West — figures on the edge of something, landscapes that carry their own weight, backgrounds that let your mind do the rest. The long way around was the only way.

  • The Beginning The Long Way Around Gabe grew up in a small oil field camp 60 miles outside Casper, Wyoming...

    The Beginning

    The Long Way Around

     

    Gabe grew up in a small oil field camp 60 miles outside Casper, Wyoming — the kind of place that was destined to become a ghost town. He came to LA in 1998 with $1,900, a car, an art portfolio, and no plan B. The animation industry wasn't hiring. He got a seasonal job at Macy's folding shirts. To make ends meet he started selling color copies of his portfolio paintings on the Venice Beach boardwalk on weekends. Macy's wouldn't give him every weekend off. So he quit. He hasn't had a real job since spring of 1999

    That led to more than a decade of boardwalk selling, art festivals, college campuses, and slowly figuring out how making a living as an artist actually works. In 2005, he bet $12,000 on a booth at the New York Art Expo. He came home with $12 to his name. He was back at Venice the following weekend. Since then, the work has been in galleries in the UK and across North America. He hasn't quit yet.

    "Paying your dues is the only job you'll never lose."

  • The Work

    Welcome to Town

     

    For most of his career, Gabe's paintings focused on the figures. The body language and movement was key. The background doing its own kind of emotional vibe work, abstracted, letting the viewer's mind fill in the rest. The landscape was always implied and the characters weren't posing for paintings. 

    Going back to Wyoming — to the sandstone rocks and relentless wind above the ghost town he first lived — it occurred to him that he wasn't just visiting. The formative experience of the environment was inseparable from his identity. This landscape had become the lens through which all the work would be filtered. Welcome to Town is the result: a body of work where the environment is as much a character as the figures in it. Where you came from informs who you are. The stage and the actors carry equal weight.

  • The Philosophy

    Comedy on the Cusp of Tragedy

     

    The West Never Left. It's not merely a subject Gabe returns to — it's the lens everything gets filtered through. The Noir figures, the musicians, the girls with guns. They're all carrying the same DNA. The attitude, the emotional weight, the lone figure in conflict with something out of view. That's Western. It doesn't require a horse or a desert.

    He came out of the landscape itself. Not a tourist painting pretty pictures of it. Close enough that his own view distorts the perspective. That distortion is the point of view.

    The abstract backgrounds carry a vibe that reinforces the characters. Creating a place for your mind to fill with whatever you're carrying. That's not an accident. What you're connecting with is you. You're just not used to not recognizing yourself in a mirror.

    Comedy on the cusp of tragedy. The feeling is the point.

    "Spare us the details."

  • In His Own Words

    "the voice in my head would like to have a wider audience"

    25 years of notes from the studio, the road, and everywhere in between.

    Join the Audience