The Miami Herald gets into the swing of ArtBasel with a mini-profile Stephen Gamson:
Gamson, 44, arrived in South Florida in the early 1990s from Atlanta. He was a fledgling artist, making money by selling and trading pieces in an extensive art collection he’d started amassing when he was 17.
“Some kids bought new clothes or new cars, I bought paintings,” he says.
His appreciation for art stemmed from his family’s business in Orlando — a “green recycling center,” a k a a junk yard. “I was fascinated with the artists in town who would come by our facility looking for things to use in a new work of art,” he says. “I always thought it was great how they took other people’s cast-offs and made something special and thoughtful with it.” […]
It was in 2001, while in the Russian airport’s bathroom, where he got the idea to incorporate universal symbols in his art.
He spent the next few years developing the style. His biggest break came in 2007 when Seth Jason Beitler of Seth Jason Beitler Fine Arts, who had been following Gamson for several years, asked the artist to show his work along with sculptures by John Henry, during Art Basel. Beitler, already a force in South Florida’s arts scene, contacted Gamson and offered to represent him. […]
He painted the logos for the international Bustelo Coffee chain, and his prints are mounted in the Bustelo Cafe inside the Gansevoort Hotel in Miami Beach.
His mural At the table with a flower, of two couples dining, graces the side of the Wynwood Art Complex near Midtown Miami, and he’s painting bottle art for Select Vodka.
And look for Gamson during Art Basel-Miami Beach next month, showing his work at Art Miami and tooling about town in a Lamborghini he was commissioned to paint for the festival by Lamborghini of North America and Lamborghini Miami.
Miami Pop Artist Aims for Simple, Happy (Miami Herald)
