What does art do? Anticipating his upcoming show at Altamira Fine Art, Geoffrey Gersten considers this question and the answer his new paintings posit. For him, art bridges the individual and the ideal. Art magnifies the scale and the significance of everyday life.
By his brush, subtle moments become symbolic of greater truths—a gesture that harkens back to classic Golden Age romances. Love—writ large on silver screens—represents the most exuberant expression of human emotion, the gilded fulfillment of relatable intentions. Hollywood, like religion, casts icons out of real feelings. “Silver screen romances attempt to represent the greater ideal of true love,” the artist says.
Gersten considers the symbolic nature of embodiment: how bodies enact instinct and intentions, sometimes achieving even greater effect. As is the case with body language, which so often transcends spoken communication. In this movement from somatic to symbolic, Gersten sees greatness beyond self.
