Artist captures fleeting moments in painting

"Camping Inside the Fence" by Brock Gordon

Brock Gordon is all about the “right now.”

Gordon created his paintings in the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” over the past two months, working quickly to show what he was interested in at that moment. These fast decisions made his works of art his own, he said.

“I work quickly as a way to capture what I see as a poetic moment in our culture,” said Gordon. He uses the Internet as a tool to identify the global cultural landscape, creating narratives for his paintings.

Gordon emphasized how the works of art in his exit show are not a collection of his “greatest hits.” Instead, his paintings serve as a reflection of his current interests and as a commentary on global events.

“Gone With the Wind,” a painting in Gordon’s exit show, features an image of the main characters gazing at their plantation during a sunset. He turned the famous image upside down, abstracting the landscape while adding other images from American antiquity like a buffalo head and axes. The painting’s bright colors serve as a comparison of the introduction of Technicolor in movies and the “flamboyant” uses of color in contemporary times, he said.

Gordon said he appreciates the idea that painting continually reinvents itself after its ideas have become outdated and technologies have changed our perceptions. He said his work plays with ideas of physical and virtual space, investigating these ideas with the “language of painting.”

Gordon is an MFA candidate for painting and currently teaches drawing and painting classes as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Georgia. He uses his background as a farm worker to form landscapes in his paintings.

“I think speed and immediacy are things we expect now as a culture, and I like making work in that manner,” said Gordon.

The “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” is on view at the Georgia Museum of Art March 16 to April 22, 2013, with an opening reception in conjunction with 90 Carlton: Spring on March 22. MFA Speaks is scheduled for March 21 at 5:30 p.m. and will feature the artists discussing their work.