Interview
Allan Gorman
Allan Gorman's art takes viewers on a journey into the intriguing shapes, designs, and moods created by the light and shadow cast on architectural and industrial structures.
His artwork has been featured in over 120 solo, museum and gallery exhibits, and has been shown at several distinguished art fairs, including Art/LA, The Palm Beach Art Fair, Art Greenwich, The Other Art Fair in Brooklyn, and Art Fair 14C in Jersey City, New Jersey.
In 2013 and in 2022, Allan was awarded a Fellowship for Painting from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He was selected as one of the 100 Grandmasters of Realist Art, sponsored by the Salon Des Beaux Arts.
His artwork has been featured for six consecutive years in Arte Libre's Art Y Libertad, four times in Manifest's International Arts Annual, several issues of the American Art Collector, Poets/Artists Magazine, Steadfast Arte Magazine, The Huffingtion Post, CreativeTime4Talk; about.com, ArtHabens review, The Huts Magazine and dozens of other print and electronic publications.
Allan Gorman’s art is included in numerous corporate and private collections.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I began identifying as an artist in the third grade when a teacher gushed over a little drawing I did, and made me take it around to all the classrooms in the school to show it off. But in the beginning of my professional career, I worked as a Madison Avenue art director, and then I ran my own advertising and brand-marketing firm for over 25 years.
In the early 1980’s, I was teaching an advertising concept course at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. One perk was being able to take classes at the school for free, and I studied photography, film-making, and other things related to my professional career. One day, my wife Susan suggested that I take a painting class. I’d never painted before and I was afraid of not being any good at it. But I bit the bullet and enrolled in an Introduction to Oil Painting class on Saturday mornings.
Back then, there was an excitement about photo-realism, and I was attracted to what some of the artists were doing. That led to doing a bunch of commissions for friends and then other people. But I began to find the commissions a chore and not enjoyable. My day job was much more creative, challenging, and a lot more lucrative. I had a child and a mortgage and needed to make a living, so I stopped painting to focus on my commercial business.
Years later, in 2008, I decided to try painting again. I enrolled in a painting class with a landscape artist at a local museum in order to explore and find something else to paint. I was hooked for good this time, and in 2013, I closed my business and began a new career as a professional fine artist. I’m loving my new job, and haven’t looked back since!”
What inspires you most?
“I have a good eye for composition and design, and I’m constantly looking for abstract juxtapositions that catch my curiosity. I see unusual shapes and contrasts everywhere. I become inspired by seeing something new, and then sharing it with others who might like it too.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“I shoot lots of reference pictures and seem to be most attracted to the abstract patterns, random shapes, and aesthetic tensions I see in manufactured objects—particularly within the confines of structures and machinery. More recently, the poetic tensions created by hard light and shadow have been evident in my work, and I’ve trained my eye and brain to actively search for them.”
How would you describe your work?
“Many people tend to define my work as photorealistic because I use my photos as reference. I really don’t like that definition as my main interest isn’t about impressing people with my technical skills. Rather, my work attempts to share the excitement of witnessing a startling scene.”
“I like to think my work says, ‘Hey, look at this! Isn’t that interesting?’
I think embodying art with emotion and feeling is what makes it art.”
Which artists influence you most?
“When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, my neighborhood was near the el, and I was especially drawn to the mystery and magic of the NYC subway trains, streets, and architecture. Earlier on, I was drawn to the NYC ash can school artists and photographers of the first part of the 20th century. Particularly those who captured the working class and gritty side of life such as George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh, and Thomas Hart Benton. Also the precisionist school artists like Charles Sheeler, Ralston Crawford, Paul Strand, Margaret Bourke-White, and many others. Although my style is a bit more modern, I think their influence is increasingly evident in what I’m doing today.”
What is your creative process like?
“I use my camera as my sketchbook, taking lots and lots of photos, primarily with paintings in mind. But sometimes the photos stand by themselves and don’t need to be painted. I love those too. When I find a good candidate, I use Photoshop to experiment, distorting, changing colors, retouching or removing unnecessary details, and then I make a file to project onto my substrate. I use a good printout for reference while painting. Then in the final stages, I set the reference aside and adjust colors and shapes until I can call the artwork done. Sometimes I’m unsuccessful and will abandon a work if I don’t think I can resolve it into something I’d be proud of.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I don’t profess to have any answers on how to fix things, nor do I have a personal agenda to change the world or spark anyone to action. At heart, I’m an entertainer and someone who’s trying to find common ground and make a connection. That said, I do admire artists who are outraged at the world’s inequities, and I think they are, and always were necessary. They and their art will evolve as society does. And if their voices can be helpful in changing society for the benefit of man, that’s fantastic. But I’m not an activist. I just hope my own legacy will be for unique and enjoyable artworks based on my experiences, and that they can bring a smile to somebody.”
Please tell us about any previous exhibitions you found noteworthy and wish to share.
“I am honored to be the recipient of a 2022 Individual Fellowship for Painting from The New Jersey State Council on the Arts. I also received that honor in 2013.
My work is currently on view at The New Jersey Arts Annual at The New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, New Jersey through to April, 2023; four pieces are shown in LUSTER – A travelling Exhibition of Realistic Automotive and Motorcycle Art, currently at The Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Indiana, and traveling through the fall of 2023; a painting is included in a show at the MEAM Museum in Barcelona, Spain; and a large solo show at The CCM Gallery in Morristown, NJ in 2018 featured 35 of my pieces of my work.
There are a few upcoming exhibits on my calendar later this year, and I will be participating in a large exhibit in NYC planned for the fall of 2024.”
