Bruce Shores
“Rooted in familiar genres like the human figure, the still life, and the landscape. Shores’s paintings and drawings are distinguished by their restraint and quiet attentiveness. His work resist spectacle in favor of contemplation and treats its subjects with a sense of reverence that reflects both technical mastery and ethical care.”
-Dr. Emily Gerhold, Art Historian, Assistant Professor of Art History, and Curator of the Sechrest Gallery at High Point University
In the late 80s I earned my MFA at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. It was there that my still life, figurative, and landscape work began in earnest. Andrew Martin, the great painter who taught at the UNCG from the mid 60s to the mid 90s was my primary mentor during my time there. His fundamental approach to what he called the possibilities of painting was an exploration of the rhythms, repetitions, and intervals found in painting from observation.
For me, this exploration became a type of documentation of a collection of moments of perception and how they informed every brushstroke and color choice and texture choice. This documentation is a form of celebration. The work therefore takes on the possibilities of painting as a documentation of celebration. Allowing for the work to continue to unveil itself over time such that the it remains fresh with each moment of viewing.
