Gregory Botts developed as a figurative and landscape painter under the tutelage of New York school rebels Paul Georges and Fairfield Porter - two artists seeking a relevant, modern vocabulary for representational painting that also honored certain ideas from Abstract Expressionism. Over his career, Botts has injected poetry, philosophy and critical theory into his continuing search for a painting style that marries the abstract to the concrete.
Born in landscape, apprenticed in abstraction and now a seasoned synthesis of the two, Gregory Botts is devoted to the power of color and brush. Currently living in both New York and New Mexico, the artist chooses to begin his creative process by painting en plein air. However, Botts does not limit himself to the tangible environment. Instead, he focuses on the ever-changing scenery that he interprets as allegory. Unlike his predecessors and contemporaries, Botts brings a modern edge to this deep-rooted subject by reforming his “sketches” in his studio. It is in the city that he alters the initial compositions and paints big, sometimes 10-foot canvases, which become poetically grounded abstractions of his experience. In the final development of his work, Botts brings juxtapositions of abstract surface to naturalist spaces to bear. This is most apparent in his studio ‘scapes’, which are assembled views of the painting’s elements within his studios.
Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1952, Gregory Botts attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, as well as assisted the artist Paul Georges. He received a scholarship to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Botts has served as painting instructor at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, at the University of Santa Barbara, California, and teaches figure drawing at the NY Studio School.
