Giving Life to the Community
Artists
Tim Gaskin:
Colorist and pop artist Tim Gaskin was raised in multi-cultural San Francisco during the Seventies and Eighties and was influenced by liberal politics, the sexual revolution, television, magazines, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, local art, and dance music. Gaskin began painting at fourteen when he was living on his own. At that time he used his art to escape from reality and to tune out the environment around him. Today Gaskin is using his art to transform and enhance the environment of others.
The San Francisco Chronicle called Gaskin's work "inspired by pop art, each seeking the balance of nature and flow of energy with just the right mix," and wrote that "Gaskin's paintings are colorful abstract works."
Gaskin continues the Pop Art Movement begun in the Sixties by the late Andy Warhol. Many pop artists explored glamour icons Marilyn, Elvis, and Jackie O.; Gaskin similarly explores images of glamorized beauty in his recent series of portraits of idealized western commercial female beauties. Gaskin's women, however, are all adorned by nature, in the form of a wreath or halo adorning their heads. This brings into play a traditional West Coast conflict of pure natural beauty in opposition to the stylization of clearly made-up women. In these paintings, however, the "natural" beauty is integrated with a commercial feel and look. The strength of Gaskin's paintings is also rooted in the bold but balanced color scheme and graphic construction. The paintings read like beautiful "supermodels." One could envision them on billboards or in a fashion magazine.
Gaskin's heavenly beauties are unnamed glamour queens, as natural in their classic beauty as the flowers in their hair. The paintings suggest that what was once high-gloss commercial glamour has become classical elegance, like the pure lilies, sunflowers and roses paired with each type of beauty. The paintings feel right for the time: classical, beautiful and simple, but still electric, over the top and very pop.
