Former Delaware resident Todd Gordon’s panoramic paintings will be on display Oct. 1 through Nov. 13 at Ohio Wesleyan University’s Richard M. Ross Art Museum, 60 S. Sandusky St.
The exhibit, titled “Matter of Fact,” will include 30 paintings by the Hayes High School graduate.
Now living in Stockholm, Sweden, Gordon will return to central Ohio to present an illustrated artist’s talk at 7 p.m. Oct. 22 in Room 312 of OWU’s R.W. Corns Building, 78 S. Sandusky St. His presentation will be followed by a public reception from 8 to 10 p.m. at the nearby art museum.
Of his work, Gordon says: “As a perceptual, realist painter, I am committed to the tradition and rigorous practice of working from direct observation. I paint on location, over extended periods of time. My personal relationship with each place begins with something I might see that initially strikes me on a formal level – the way a straight road seemingly bends elliptically in space, the expansive curve or unusual color of a bridge, the interplay of graffiti on a corrugated metal fence – and gradually develops or changes significance with each successive visit. …
“Eventually, the focus, subject, or very meaning of the work might shift organically through the openness of the painting process itself,” he says. “I attempt to paint exactly what I see, as I see it. By abstracting nature, by ‘forgetting what you know,’ as Edwin Dickinson would say, I endeavor to remove my personal subjectivity and any overtly emotional projections from the work. In doing so, I eschew the typical sentimentality common, historically, in most conventional landscape painting.”
Gordon holds a master of fine arts degree in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a bachelor of arts degree in art history from Northwestern University. He has taught as an adjunct lecturer in studio art and been a guest lecturer and critic at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn College, SUNY Purchase College, Montclair University, the New York Studio School, and Hudson County Community College.
Justin Kronewetter, director of OWU’s Ross Art Museum, said Gordon’s exhibit is a can’t-miss event for art lovers and all Delaware residents.
“While I didn’t know Todd during his formative years here in Delaware,” Kronewetter says, “in recent years I’ve come to know him vicariously through his highly accomplished artwork. And since I’m now an appreciator of his plein-air paintings, securing his agreement to make a large number of his panoramic landscapes available for display here in the Ross Art Museum is personally very satisfying.
“In bringing Todd’s artwork to Delaware,” Kronewetter concludes, “I’m confident it will prove to be instructional for the many students studying art here at Ohio Wesleyan while simultaneously providing a pleasurable viewing experience for everyone who visits the museum while the work is to be on display. This exhibition is testament to Todd’s being a highly accomplished and most successful native son.”
