Mojave
Arshile Gorky
ARSHILE GORKY, 1941. OIL ON CANVAS.
An Armenian refugee, escaping the genocide, who took on the name of Georgian nobility and became one of America’s most influential and important painters, Gorky remains to this day enigmatic and illusive. Though his work does not immediately appear of the genre, Gorky was the spiritual founder of Abstract Expressionism. Andre Breton tried to claim him as a surrealist and the Paris School and New York School of Artists both consider Gorky a profound influence. His work is lyrically abstract, using biomorphic forms that simultaneously express pure emotion, transferred from mind to hand with no interference from the conscious, while being unplaceably figurative. He was a bridge between languages, inspiring the visual linguists who came after him and changing the way his contemporaries thought. More than just bridging movements, Gorky was a connection between European and American art worlds, fostering trans-Atlantic relationships that shrunk the world around him into a unified, collaborative place.