Could you start by giving us a short introduction to your practice? Do you have any moments that have defined or shaped your art over the years?

Fearless, glowing, clever, seductive, witty, rubbery, clownish, comedic, triumphant, radiant, resilient, immortal--these words describe me until at age 34, married with baby, Madison, Wisconsin, Paul Bunyan swung an anvil through my chest. I plummeted to my knees, then face, a felled beast. We call it “crack-up”, “nervous breakdown”, “emotional crisis”.  It almost killed me. I passed through Sulphur. I transitioned from genius to idiot. That was my reshaping defining moment. Before, God. After,  Neanderthal. A cruel hinge that swung. 

I’ve spent my life seeking answers. Psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, psych wards, books, introspection, pills, relationships, self-loathing, digging, digging, digging. What happened to me? Why? I was so perfect. Do demons swirl within? Who were my parents? Why were my parents? Was I loved? Can I love?

One cannot be both ignorant and a serious artist.

Now I am free, uninhibited, joyous, and proud. I paint catharsis and cathexis. With arms outstretched, I trace liberating arcs across large canvases, from six feet high to twelve feet high to six again. Edge to edge, I stride unbroken arteries of paint. I empower instinct, intuition, primality, trust. I scrawl. I slap. I confess. Painting for me, and poetry before, is pain and song. It is suffering and jubilee.

I work most days from 10-4 like a flying ox. I love self-expression, and I am empowered when I am not flat on my ass.

It was really no breakdown at all, but an invitation to wholeness

In your bio, you mention that you are parodying your own angst and that of the human race with poetic sincerity. Can you deconstruct this statement for us? What significance does this phrase hold within the broader context of your artistic practice?

I require of myself brutal honesty. No surfaces or fake smiles. I know of what cruelties I am capable. And niceties. I understand to a respectable degree my anger, my hurt, my melancholy, my insecurity, my loneliness, my narcissism, and (yes) my divinity.  Know thyself, admonished Socrates. Freud showed us how. I believe the deeper I delve into myself, the higher ascends my powers of empathy--and with that ascension arises the power of art. I don’t think I premeditatively parody my angst but rather strive vividly to expose it to all, which I suppose may inadvertently morph into parody. After all, at some point, death seems funny. Think of the Tycoon in his high glass office on the day he goes broke. He either jumps out the window or breaks into a giggle, finally getting the joke.

One can separate the imposter from the genuine article. Which am I? Which are you? It’s a continuous process. The artwork will reveal. That is my strife.

You've described your oil painting as a way to counteract the fear of worthlessness, meaninglessness, futility, and death. What led you to dedicate your practice to exploring this medium and these existential paradigms?

When I spin like a dervish inside my huge studio until four-hundred paintings blur about my head, I realize that I did not paint these pieces. Outside this sanctuary, I am a flat, affectless, inarticulate old man. I’m lazy and humorless, a watcher of film. You know the type. I’m slumped and disheveled and functionally depressed, who smokes dope to feel good. But I have a slit in my back where Frederick (that’s his name) slips in his hand made of lightning and fire mixed with nuggets of ice and zings me to life. It’s he who paints, and before painting wrote verse. It’s he, my Frederick, inspired, electric, courageous, proud, a slayer of wolves who lifts me up like a sock and brands the world with his voice. In my studio, I am Thor, extinguishing my feelings of failure, worthlessness, futility, and regret. With paintbrush, I am warrior, ruthless and complete. I am big as a ship. I am somebody else. At home, poor postured, I stumble over words and stare into space. Art with bravery fills the meek. It is both the murder and the resurrection.

Your art initiates a powerful dialogue about the role of art in confronting authoritarianism and defending democracy. What methods do you use to create a narrative that is both a critical statement on the current global atmosphere and approachable without alienating your viewers?

I am indifferent to alienating viewers. The only being I need to satisfy is myself. Indeed, if artists cannot alienate, they will not puncture holes. I made a sculpture comprised of cutting, ripping, gouging, drilling, pulverizing farm implements, plus wire, chains, sprockets, and wood blocks, all painted black and swirled them around Donald Trump’s head to symbolize his grift. His eye is a hole with the screw pulled out. I did this to exorcise the fury within. I did this for myself. I did not think of audiences or alienation when undertaking this. I repeat a cliché, “be true to thyself”. When one paints for sales, one betrays oneself.

I wish I could say that art has the power to stop juggernauts such as wars, genocides, human trafficking, authoritarians, mass hysteria, and the like. It doesn’t, in fact. It’s a Whammo against a tank. Artists can and must employ their talents against the hell that confronts them. All do their part. But even Picasso’s magnificent Guernica does not stop the bombs. It’s a powerful headstone to the Guernica dead and the yet to die in future conflagrations. But art simply cannot save the world.

Still, such protest pieces wash out the rage inside their makers and, more importantly, forces evil to look at its face. Evil doesn’t care what the mirror beholds. But just such mirrors artists must make. This piece I describe, titled “The Devil’s Toolkit”, is my small sheet of glass.

One of your pieces, titled "Patriotic Fugue," incorporates variations of the phrase from the novelist Sinclair Lewis, “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and cross.” Could you lead us through the process and the visual and conceptual languages behind this piece?

Patriotic Fugue consists of one miniscule perfect American flag, shouldering eight desecrated American flags, each thirty-three percent smaller than the next. I surrounded these flags with pieces of the phrase, “When fascism comes to America…” along with symbols of hate to expose Trump’s first-term encroaching fascism. I employed rulers, tape, ink, paint, and a bit of grit to make this piece. I knew upon encountering it that some people would spin upon their heels and walk out. Who gives a fuck. I’m not sure what visual and conceptual language means exactly. I am no scholar of art. I envisioned a monstrosity stomping on a flag to represent something horrible crushing our Democracy, and, as best I could, I painted it outright. Years from now, it will shine through layers of dust in some crawlspace or attic.

Beyond the strong aesthetic and conceptual aspects of your practice, what do you hope your work evokes in viewers? What kind of conversation typically surrounds your work?

I want to shock the body of repression residing within us. I want to crack open the unspeakable, the “shameful” and the “ugly” locked away in vaults hidden somewhere below. I cannot paint sailboats, bouquets, cut crystal vases. I haven’t the skill or the inclination. I paint interiors—capabilities, insecurities, fantasies, vulnerabilities that churn the human heart. I do not want to elicit, “Oh, Gordon, how sweet,” or “Just beautiful” or “This compliments my couch”. I want to hear “It’s alive.” “It throbs.” “It makes me throw up!” I want to offend rather than uplift. The conversations, as few as I’ve had, surrounding my art range from “It’s so dark,” to “Wonderful but nuts,” to “Tate Modern stuff.” One person cried. One person—I mean this literally—Zoomed David Hockney in France and walked him around. I mostly get polite or enthusiastic compliments. What I really want is silence. Whitman wrote in his poem, “Upon Hearing the Learned Astronomer,” “I wandered off by myself in the mystical moist night air…and looked up in perfect silence at the stars.”

You are not only a prolific and accomplished visual artist but also a former Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet with seven published volumes. What led you to focus more on visual art, and how do these two mediums feed each other?

Poetry is painting without paint; painting is poetry without words. The same creative fire fuels both equally and without prejudice.  I slid off poetry onto painting the way a blind child slides his hand along one wall onto another. That is, I took words as far as I could, but the flames still raged and caught the edges of painting. This passion/fire throws the same message/light regardless the medium, that being the primal/elemental impulses of the human psyche. That describes my project as an artist: to unveil interiors.

Yes, as a monomaniacal man, I am prolific, but how accomplished only time will disclose.

From your perspective, how do art and artistic creation bridge the gap between global societal and political issues and the general public?

I do not believe art appreciably impacts politics, politics spins like a massive planet on its own untouchable axis. Yes, artists serve the military by romanticizing war (“Uncle Sam Wants You” or “For A Secure Future Buy War Bonds”). But art cannot halt military invasions or the triumph of dictators. Art is responsive but not propulsive. I cannot think of one piece of art or collective art movement which has ever protected the public from madmen. Though art may raise consciousness, it hasn’t the power to quiet acrimonious barroom men from bashing each other with fists and chairs.

Even though you do not consider yourself a political artist, you not only create artworks with a political commentary but also participate in protests and write letters to Congress. What advice would you offer young artists who want to engage more deeply with the subjects they portray, extending their involvement beyond the studio?

Globally stated, the primary purpose of art is to transform insignificance into significance, or more simply stated, to solidify for the artist the validation of existence in an anonymous world. The secondary purpose is to connect on an arterial-red primeval level with other human beings to form a bond of recognition. The rest is painting, regardless how skilled or learned. Therefore, engage in art, not in painting, sums up my advice to young artists.

Lastly, what message would you like to leave our readers?

Never remain in your comfort zone.

Learn more about the artist here.

Cover image

The Valkyries, 2025. Oil on Canvas, 335cmx335cm by Gordon Massman.

All images courtesy of Gordon Massman.