“I encourage the exploration of media, grounded in an understanding of the fundamentals of drawing, color, and design. My personal experience as an artist and an educator has convinced me that students respond to this approach and quickly find their own means of personal expression.

My work reflects a wide range of professional and academic experience. I have worked as an illustrator for magazines, newspapers and book publishers. This experience has involved representational drawing, portrait studies in oil, and work done in the areas of etching and lithography.

My work done during the past ten years reflects a movement toward a less representational approach to painting and drawing, and printmaking. I believe that experience in a wide range of media serves to inform and enrich work done in any media. I have been influenced by the Abstract Expressionist painters of the 1950s and 1960s, and the work of the 19th century English painter, J.M.W. Turner.

I have been equally attracted to and influenced by the New York movement of social realism best represented by the Union Square Artists of the 1930s. While my primary influences are related to these movements (among others), I am excited and connected to a wide variety of contemporary work and try to view as many exhibitions as I can in the New York area.”

About Me

I’m an artist and teacher living in Brooklyn (the land of enchantment) NY. I am divorced and have joint custody of my daughter who is the love of my life.

I love to bicycle, and have ridden from Brooklyn to Buffalo, and all over the UK and Holland. I’m aloof, friendly, shy, gregarious……a walking contradiction, but at this age, I do know pretty much who I am and have established some consistency and sensibility!

Location: Brooklyn, NY

Hometown: Buffalo, NY

Education:

Columbia University,  Class of 1994 , PhD, Art Education.
University of New York at Buffalo, Masters in Fine Art, in Painting and Printmaking.

Occupation: Artist/Teacher

“I feel that my interest and experience in representational as well as more “abstract” art has developed a broadened sensibility toward both my own work and my personal philosophy of teaching.” – Gregory Lyde Vigrass