Gary Welton was born in Brainerd Minnesota. He has had major exhibitions of his paintingsfeaturing dance and movement in commercial and university galleries and museums including theJudith Ewing Morlan Contemporary Art Gallery in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, The MinneapolisWoman’s Club, The Key West Gallery in Key West, Griffin Gallery in Minneapolis, RajputanaPalace in India, the MC Gallery in Minneapolis, Luther College in Decorah, University of St.Thomas in Minneapolis, and the Beverly Art Center and Museum in Chicago to name a few.
In addition, his work is in international, private and corporate collections including those at DainBosworth and Jamco International.
Mr. Welton is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. In 1994, his work was selected forinclusion in the “Art in Embassies Program” in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is being reviewed by majormuseums and his work and process - focusing on painting directly from life, using dancers in motionas his primary subjects - has been featured on KMSP Channel 9, “The Buzz”, an arts andentertainment section of the evening news in the Twin Cities and Bhaskar Television in Jaipur,India. He is currently working on “Mythologies,” a series of oil paintings on canvas featuring variouspsychologies and forces of nature evident in myths.
Mr. Welton attended the University of Minnesota and received a BFA in 1984.“When I think about my art and what a personal and intimate journey it has been and continues tobe, I feel extreme gratitude towards the people who find merit in it. Artists take a risk puttingthemselves out there, and the fact that people throughout my career were able to receive, recognizeand appreciate my art, is an extremely rewarding experience in itself.”
Artists are in a constant search for a means of expression that captures the essence of humanexperience, that thing that we all share and call life. Finding the gesture, the moment and perspectivefrom which people can see and appreciate the beauty of life is of extreme importance to me and hasbeen my goal ever since I started making my art. In 1990 I was inspired by my model/dancer’smovements. This resulted in a quick creation of a large painting on paper that was later transmittedonto canvas. Since then, I have always started work with a quick sketch just to capture thedancer/model’s movements. This encourages a natural flow of energy in the work and the paintinggains a greater resemblance of life. The more a model moves, the more abstract the paintingbecomes. The rapid flow of the model’s body in motion encourages me to follow and try toresurrect the dance on the canvas. In the moment, I seek abandonment and yet a captivity.
I’d like to think of myself as a conduit, a transmitter of the dancer/model’s energy to the viewer, thefinal receiver of the experience. This is how we all can share and feel connected. This is my way offinding what it means, this human experience. We, as humans, are all in different places at differenttimes in our journeys. Every single one of us is strikingly unique; however we have somethingextremely similar that bonds us together – we are all in search of the ever-elusive notion of what itmeans to be human. I believe that this common thing is what we all try to discover through art informs of dance, music, mythology and literature.
