Wayne Gonzales (born 1957) is an American painter, whose work confronts the conversations between photography, history, and memory.
He is based in New York City.
Early life and education
Wayne Gonzales was born in 1957 in
New Orleans,
Louisiana. He grew up on the same street as
Lee Harvey Oswald, which inspired his later art work.
Gonzales earned a
Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985, from the
University of New Orleans.
He moved to New York City in the late 1980s.
Early in his career Gonzales worked as a studio assistant for artist
Peter Halley.
His first solo exhibition was in 1997.
Work
Gonzales' paintings depict scenes of American Culture by using sources of imagery often taken from mass media and the internet.
He uses factual components to find instinctive connections to abstraction through painting. Up close, the paintings appear pixelated; once glanced from a far the pixelation comes together and forms an intricate image much like
Op Art
Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions.
Op artworks are abstract, with many better-known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images ...
. Gonzales became well known for presenting socially and political imagery, such as his paintings based around the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.
This body of work gained much acknowledgement when it opened at Paula Cooper Gallery in 2001.
His work has traveled to galleries and museums across the world where he has exhibited in group and solo shows.
Collections
*
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, United States
*
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, United States
*
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
, New York City, New York, United States
*
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
*
Neuberger Museum of Art
Neuberger Museum of Art is located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is affiliated with Purchase College, part of the State University of New York system. It is the nation's tenth-largest university museum. The museum is one of 14 sites on ...
, Purchase, New York, United States
*
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, United States
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gonzales, Wayne
1957 births
20th-century American painters
Living people
21st-century American painters
People from New Orleans
University of New Orleans alumni