Rico gatson biography
•
Rico Gatson
For almost two decades, Rico Gatson has been making strong work that stands at the intersection of formalist abstraction and social commentary. This solo exhibition was a stand-alone project at Studio 10 in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. (He is normally affiliated with Ronald Feldman Fine Art in Manhattan.) Gatson took on some of the thornier issues of racial identity with which he continuously wrestles, using the gallery almost like a lab for working them out. Must oppression be a crucible for identity? Does where you stand on a difficult issue necessarily define who you are?Gatson hands out no easy answers (who could?), but, in seeking them, he’s willing to put himself and his own position as a black artist on the line.
On view was a group of works (most from 2014) in diverse mediums: painting, sculpture, a photo collage and a looping video projected onto a handmade wooden screen. In concert, they formed a unified mise-en-scène with a DIY vibe.
•
Born 1966, Augusta, Georgia
Rico Gatson’s parents named him Aunrico, apparently after an Italian wrestler. When Gatson was three years old, his family moved from Georgia to Riverside, California, because it “provided more opportunities for Black families than the South did at the time,” he says.1 His mother was a nurse and his father had a landscaping business. Gatson loved coloring as a child and wanted his lines to be crisp. Today, hard-edged lines abound in his work. “I find maximal pattern to be really soothing,” he has said.2 He graduated with a BA in studio art (1989) from Bethel College nära St. Paul, Minnesota, where he also played football. He earned an MFA in sculpture (1991) from the Yale University School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut, studying with the sammanfattning sculptor and celebrated teacher David von Schlegell. Gatson likes to call his paintings “painted things,” he has said, because “it kinda makes them sculpture.”
Gatson’s art explores issues of race, h
•
Rico Gatson
Biography
Rico Gatson is a Brooklyn-based multimedia artist and object maker working across abstraction and figuration.
Gatson graduated from Bethel College with a BFA in 1989 and Yale School of Art with an MFA in 1991. His art is influenced by the early twentieth-century geometric compositions of Russian Constructivist propaganda posters, whose creators believed that art should reflect the everyday lives of the people. Reimagining the Black figure’s place in history, the present, and the future, Gatson’s work also evokes Afrofuturism. He frequently combines these inspirations in one canvas, sculpture, video, or mural mosaic to create vibrant geometric compositions underpinned with powerful social commentary, often related to significant moments in Black history. Gatson’s work inspires thoughtful investigations and renegotiations of race, identity politics, and history. His abstract works powerfully offer loaded symbols and images that spark dialogue regardi