Carl Gombert

I am a generalist. I am curious. I am easily distracted. By inclination and by training I am an interdisciplinarian. I was trained to be able to make different kinds of things in different styles and with different materials. But I have been told to specialize. I have been told to go deep. I have been told to stick with it. And there is virtue in consistency, virtue in expertise, and virtue in persistence. But, I am at an age and a point in my career where I know longer feel a need to produce a coherent body of work, or to try to be “known” for a certain type of thing. So, I find myself splitting time between painting larger-than-life realistic heads and busy decorative paintings filled with rubber stamps, stickers, and doorknobs. I also still love to draw from life. I am reading more than ever and I am making music whenever I can. This show presents several different strands of recent work, and older work that has not been shown at Maryville College. The ink drawings and watercolor figures are done from lifedrawn or painted from direct observation of live modelswhich I believe to be an essential part of one’s art training. The landscapes, on the other hand, are based on sketches, notes, and photos but created after the fact in the studio. Similarly, the painted heads are painted from photos, sometimes years after the initial sitting. And the rubber-stamped pieces don’t rely on observation at all but grow intuitively from a very improvisational process. Although it may not be readily apparent, these works are connected in my mind, and they benefit from experiences and interests outside of art. carl gombert August, 2021 Biography Carl Gombert was born in Brimfield, Ohio in 1959. He started taking painting lessons at the age of 14 with money he earned delivering newspapers. He completed a BFA in Drawing from the University of Akron and an MFA in Painting from Kent State University. He worked as a stagehand before earning a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts at Texas Tech University. He has exhibited in more than 300 exhibitions across the US and abroad. His work is in numerous museum and university collections. Since 1993 has taught painting, drawing, and art history at Maryville College in Tennessee.