Gordon Massman | Unapologetic Art From The Deepest, Darkest Self

Unapologetic Art From The Deepest, Darkest Self
by Gordon Massman

“I paint almost exclusively in oil, creating large-scale works in a 4,000-square-foot studio/gallery built on piers over the Atlantic Ocean as it meets the Gloucester, MA, commercial harbor. I infuse each paint stroke with a deep obedience to primality uninhibited by any stricture associated with artistic tradition. I say, “there is the paint, the canvas, and the sum-total of your life. Period.”
My work prefers no meaningful censorship; I paint as an elemental man whose emotions have no chains.
I do not believe in failure because I have no direct antecedents by which to judge. Most assuredly, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and the original abstract expressionists affected me deeply, but I am not derivative of this masterful work. I am a unique psyche that I launch onto the canvas, unduplicable by any other, just as they were. By being faithful to my deepest, darkest self, I am original and unapologetic.”

Massman’s subjects, while usually psychologically distressed, are offset by a subtle sense of humor, either on the canvas itself or in witty titles. Parodying his own angst and that of the human race with poetic sincerity, Massman’s paintings are shameless confessions of the human psyche, unfolded in graphic, chaotic detail.

“I paint like a Kodiak bear attacking fresh carrion, I yell at the painting. I often talk to it, in a lewd and loud fashion. I curse at it. Occasionally, I throw a brush at it.”

• Gordon Massman

My visual art springs from a four-decade-long devotion to poetry. Having published seven volumes, one of which is a collection of poems nominated for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. During those decades, over 200 journal editors selected my work for publication, including Harvard Review, Chelsea, The Georgia Review, The Literary Review, The Antioch Review, Fiddlehead, and Malahat Review, among others.
I transferred my raw emotion to the visual realm after realizing that I had reached my peak as a poet and that visual art can be much more immediately impactful than literature. Visual art does not require literacy or cerebral processing; it allows for a more immediate, unfiltered catharsis.

My work has been featured in magazines in London, Barcelona, Berlin, Lisbon, Tbilisi, New York, Toronto, Frankfurt, Liverpool, among others.

“Most assuredly, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and the original abstract expressionists affected me deeply, but I am not derivative of this masterful work.
I am a unique psyche that I launch onto the canvas, unduplicable by any other, just as they were. Because I am faithful to my deepest, darkest self, I am original and unapologetic.”
– Gordon Massman

Website: gordonmassman.com
Instagram: @gordon.massman