Gordy Fine Art and Framing

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Biography
Charlene George
 
 

            I grew up on a Franklin County farm near Brookville, Indiana.  I have always loved art and was very creative even as a child.  There was never any doubt that I would follow an art career.  Unfortunately, in pursuing this career I had to consider my financial future, as do most artists in this field.  I taught art in the public schools and gave private lessons for several years to provide an income.

I have received my B.A. and M.A. degrees from Ball State University.  For my M.A., I completed an eight-hour creative project in which I studied the techniques of the old Renaissance masters, such as Rembrandt, Reubens, Van Dyke and Michelangelo.  My oil paintings utilize several of the Renaissance painting techniques: such as glazing, which is alternating layers of opaque and transparent colors; sfumato, which is softened, blended edges; and chiaroscuro, the use of glowing light from a darker or cooler background.

I also enjoy plein aire painting of landscapes and farm scenes.  I do many smaller pastels or oils outside as studies, later some of these studies are enlarged or refined in the studio to a finished pastel or oil painting.  My artwork is realistic work with layers of color that create a glowing quality in the painting.  In oil paintings I try to use the old Renaissance painting techniques to portray contemporary subject matter.  In pastels my paintings are built up in varied layers of color similar to my oils, but a little more impressionistic.

This subject matter includes:  people, cornfields, hayfields, vegetables, fruits, and farm animals.  I’m currently working on a series of Biblical paintings, which include, the birth, death, resurrection and return of Christ.  I also enjoy painting Franklin County scenes, just as J. Ottis Adams, T.C. Steele, and William Forsyth did in the late 1890’s.  These artists stated that the villages of the Whitewater Valley had an old-world charm, which inspired them to paint the rivers, mills and towns.  This area with its rural farms, river scenes, and rich history inspires me the same as it did the Hoosier group painters.  As T.C. Steele was quoted in The Passage, “ The Whitewater and the numerous creeks make it a broken country which suits our purposes.  The hills, beautiful in summer, grow richer and richer as the autumn advances, giving us days of haze and mist and glory.”