Curated by: Ahmad Shariff
Gorman Bentley, a Claremont abstract artist, paints on canvas what words often struggle to convey.
1950s rural Dakotas may not seem like an ideal environment for a “different” sort of child, but for Gorman, it fostered a sensitive awareness of both the potential and the needs within himself and others. That played well into his life career as an educator, and later, as an "intuitive" artist.
As a child, Gorman spent countless hours gazing into endless prairie, instinctively registering the subtle colors, textures, and forms within each season. Those memories are now infused into his works on canvas. Gorman is not typically interested in painting what has already been seen or what words alone can express. Each work begins with one selected color and evolves from the first brush stroke to when the work says it is finished. Gorman invites you to enter the enormous and desolate world his young mind once imagined and use what is painted on the canvas to make one’s own discoveries of self.
Gorman and his husband have lived in the Claremont Village since 1985. Gorman exhibits locally in several venues and is also the current Resident Artist of Casa 425 Hotel and Lounge, where his works are displayed throughout the lobby and bar.