Gersch Creating a "Symphony of Form"

When I first walked into the Red Clover Gallery, I found myself asking, "What makes abstract art interesting?" Before I could answer that I felt myself drawn closer to a painting in the far corner that was full of joyful color except in the center of a circle where the pattern remained black and white. At this point in time I had not met Guntram Gersch or talked with anyone about his work and so I was merely reacting from gut instinct. The playful blues and pinks seemed to dance around this center point which became the focus in its simplicity. I identified with that feeling as I stood quietly in the middle of the room. After wandering through and taking a cursory glance at everything hanging I had the opportunity to walk through again with the artist himself.

Suddenly, each piece became an adventure as I began to recognize patterns of rhythm and mood that infused each of them. He often is listening to music while working. "Mozart, Bach, perhaps the Merry Widow Waltz for that one. There is one that is most definitely Mozart hanging at my house," he says. I notice how the piece titled Meditation has a calm symmetry to it. But looking closer it is more balance than symmetry, since no two figures look exactly the same in the field of view. "They are all mixed media. I build up by layers, sometimes starting with a pastel dust just rubbed on the page to create a suggestion of color and then adding pencil, ink, or some other medium until what I see balances the feeling and vision within me." "Well," I say, "it certainly is unique. They don't look like any other artist's work I've seen." He takes this as a compliment mentioning influences like Pollack, who he has admired but striven to break away from in order to create his own vision on paper and not just copy someone else's idea.


As we turn the corner, "Ah circles, I love circles." We are looking a series of three black and white pieces that contain concentric circles. They seem to hold a Zen-like quiet in the midst of a field of contemplative little figures. Next to us is the piece with color that first caught my eye. I realize that the circle had drawn my eye because in the midst of all the dancing colorful figures it creates a center focus for the eye. Here there seems to be a blend of joyful chaos and balance.

We come to one piece that is dark yellowish grey and feels heavy to look at, "No music for that one, silence, it came from a dark memory." I don't think either of us intended to talk politics, but somehow music and art seems to always lead back to that subject eventually. Perhaps that is because art is often the product of the emotional environment created by politics. "I grew up in Silesia before the second war. After the war the area we lived in was taken over by communist Poland and we were forced to leave our homes and move. It is not a pleasant memory."

At this point, the gallery is filling up with visitors for the opening and there are more and more people wishing to visit with Mr. Gersch about his work. He offers to let me visit his studio so we may finish our conversation. A few days later I take him up on the offer and am overwhelmed by the quantity and diversity of work that he has stored up in his own home. There are bright and colorful flower like figures, a fanciful collage of pencil shavings that catches my eye, and piles of experiments with different forms and colors that float past my eyes so quickly I barely have time to comment on the ones that particularly draw my interest. It is interesting to see how over the years the work has developed and changed. Several pieces hang around his home representing some of his favorites from different periods of the work. One piece is particularly reminiscent of Pollack and he explains that he finally "finished" it by adding a red painted circle of wood to the top of the collage to make it look less Pollack. I also finally got to see the Mozart inspired piece that is full of lush soft color and seems to move and dance with the same vibrancy as the music that inspired it.

He had recently returned from his summer home in Evian, France with piles of new sketches. "Mostly I just lock myself away in the studio and work. If someone tries to come in to say hello they are sent away. It is something that I have to do, and once I get started I don't want to be interrupted." From the collection of work that surrounds him in his home, this seems to be a passion that calls to him frequently. The work comes from a need to express emotion and ideas in a visual form rather than trying to replicate what is already visible.

I asked him about his training in art. "I was raised by a family in the hotel and restaurant business. In the 1960s I worked in a restaurant across from the Art Institute in Chicago." That was when he really began to study art for himself, and began making regular visits to the Institute. As particular influences, he mentions the Art Brut collection in Lausanne, Switzerland . The concept was started in 1945 by Jean Dubuffet to qualify art created by psychiatry residents and non-professionals of art working outside the "agreed-upon" aesthetic standards. Similar in concept is the 1948-51 COBRA avant-garde art movement (named after the cities of the artists: Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam) which drew inspiration from children's drawings and folk art valuing non-conformity and spontaneity. After seeing an exhibit, he says "I bought a lithograph and started painting like them. I never thought I would exhibit my own work."

However, in 1967 a lady friend opened the Counterpoint Gallery on Lakeshore Drive in Chicago and gave him an exhibition. "From then on I began to exhibit more and more, even though that gallery eventually went out of business." During the 1970s he escaped the city and moved to Door County in Wisconsin where he continued to show his work as well as in Beirut , Bahrain, and Switzerland. In 1992 his work was shown at the Lloyd Shin Gallery in Los Angeles as part of the LA International Art Fair. As Door County grew and became more commercial a friend suggested Tryon as a new home. It only took one visit to find the home and studio where he now lives for nine months of the year saving the three "hot" months for Evian, France . Since moving to Tryon his work has been shown locally at the Tryon Fine Arts Center, The Old Upstairs Gallery, a 40 year retrospective at the Upstairs Artspace, and now at the Red Clover Gallery in Landrum. "My neighbor Mrs. Post has several of my pieces hanging in her house. Celia from Red Clover had dinner at her house and then contacted me after seeing my work there."


Guntram Gersch's current show "Symphony of Form," a collection of previously unseen work from the past 20 years is available for viewing at the Red Clover Gallery in Landrum through December 6th. The gallery is located at 214 East Rutherford Street in Landrum and is open Tuesday – Saturday 11am-5pm or by appointment. For more information you may visit www.redclovergallery.com, or call 864-457-3311.