GORMAN BENTLEY

I am an “intuitive” artist. As a child, I spent countless hours staring into the vast Dakota prairies, carefully noting the subtle colors, textures, and forms of each season. The memory of those elements is now infused into my work on canvas. I am not typically interested in painting what has already been seen or what words alone can express. Each work begins with one selected color and evolves from the first brush stroke to when the work says it is finished. I invite you to enter the enormous and desolate world my young mind once imagined and use what is painted on the canvas to make your own unique discoveries of self.

1950s rural North Dakota may not seem like an ideal environment for a “different” sort of child, but for Gorman, it fostered a sensitive awareness of the potential and needs within himself and others. That played well into his life career as an educator, and later, as an artist. Gorman lives with his husband in Claremont, California and exhibits locally in several venues.