Artist's Statement

American Oddities: My current series of work is titled “American Oddities” and centers on unusual roadside attractions mostly from the Heartland of America. The paintings I create are based on photographs, many of which I take myself. I do not create scenes from the imagination but paint scenes from real life that already appear surreal, my work is about “Everyday Surrealism.” To me these subjects show the offbeat, quirky, playful and inventive side of the American spirit. Subjects such as the World’s largest rocking chair, the giant strawberry, Cornhenge, Carhenge, Wall Drug and the World’s largest ball of twine show a creative ingenuity that is uniquely American. My work celebrates the roadside attractions and natural phenomena that bring pleasure to everyday life.

Surrealist Work:  My surreal landscapes are taken from scenes in everyday life that have a quality that is strange or otherworldly.  For a number of first wave surrealist painters, emptiness was a significant feature in the art.  De Chirico and Dali both drew heavily from scenes expressing existential void.  I think that surrealism is more than a genre of art, it is a condition of existence.  There are moments when one becomes aware of the strangeness of life, and this is an experience of surrealism.

My work focuses on the altered landscape and cultural emptiness.  I take photographs that are the basis for the paintings.  These go through a digitization process to reduce the visual information in a scene.  I choose dead malls, places left behind, blank billboards and stealth towers for my subjects.  The colors in my work are pushed to reference memory, emotional states, climate change, nuclear reality and artificial life.  Rather than inventing surrealistic scenes in an illustrative way, I paint scenes from real life that already appear surreal.

Artist's Background

The son of a commercial illustrator, Nick Gadbois was introduced to surrealism and pop art as a teen.  In the late 1980’s he began painting and exhibiting at galleries in Los Angeles.  Here he started to use cement as a medium for painting.  He received an undergraduate degree in art from Portland State University in 2004 and his graduate degree from Vermont College in 2008. His paintings have been exhibited in San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Taos and Kansas City.  His cement work led to public art projects.  In 2008 he was commissioned to create 13 precast cement panels for the Tri Cities Cancer Center in Kennewick, Washington.  He was awarded an art project to create an exterior precast cement mural for the University of New Mexico which was completed in 2013.

Gadbois has developed a number of distinct genres of paintings.  The underlying unity in his work comes from the use of real life scenes or objects for making the art.  In the 1960’s Gadbois met Warhol and he asked Andy to make a drawing of a soup can for him, which the artist did.  Warhol’s use of pop reality to make art was a significant influence on the direction Gadbois would take in painting.  His surreal landscape paintings are derived from photographs of actual places, many of which he takes himself.

Gadbois also uses real life material objects to make abstract paintings. He has invented a new approach to abstraction that is not based on the imagination but on real life phenomena.  Many sources have served as inspiration for his textural bas relief abstract works.  In the 1990’s Gadbois made numerous trips to study Native American petroglyph sites.  His abstract work has drawn from circuitry, cuneiform tablets, automotive valve bodies, CNC router discards, archaeological sites and maps.

The artist takes a bold approach to the use of color.  He uses fluorescent acrylic underpainting to push the color saturation and heighten the drama in a scene.  Along with thousands of other Americans from the counter culture in the 1960’s, Gadbois came to see colors not previously known.  He uses an amplified color palette to address memory, climate change, the nuclear era, alternate reality and artificial life.  The artist currently lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri.

More information is available at NickGadboisArt.com.