John Gibson

Artist Bio Artist Work

Fine Art Connoisseur magazine on John Gibson HERE

For over thirty years, John Gibson has focused exclusively on the shape of the ball, using it as a tool for exploring the space of painting. Often decorated with a minimal pattern to emphasize its illusory curvature in space, he uses his subject to comment on the elusive goal of depicting life in a way that captures and approximates, but never quite aligns with, three-dimensional reality. The tension between flat and dimensional space has always been central to painting; in a sense, the history of painting is the story of its engagement with this concept, from the invention of perspective to the breakthrough of cubism, which fused the two, to the flattening of the picture plane in modern abstract painting. Gibson’s patterned spheres allude to this history while at the same time retaining their integrity as basic objects—an interplay of opposing forces: flatness and roundness, lightness and darkness, simplicity and complexity.

Sue Miller, best-selling American novelist and owner of a Gibson painting, noted that “there’s an enormous tension, in this seemingly light-hearted painting, and the mind doesn’t tire of trying to work through it somehow, revising it endlessly, imaginatively, attempting to resolve the conundrum John has created—al the while relishing the close observation which that attempt demands.” The resulting paintings seem to contain a powerful kind of potential energy, the spheres on the verge of rolling out of the composition and into reality. At the same time, they’re silent and still, restrained by the materiality of paint, the flatness of canvas. With subtly rich colors and finely balanced compositions, Gibson’s paintings project intelligence, grace, and a hint of mystery.

John Gibson is a native of Massachusetts, born in Boston in 1958. He attended the Rhode Island School of design (where he earned a BFA in 1980), before earning his post-graduate degree from the prestigious master’s program at Yale. Gibson had his first one-man show at the University of Massachusetts in 1984, and he began showing in group exhibitions in the Boston and New York areas in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s Gibson’s paintings began to focus on pyramidal compositions of spheres resembling children’s playground balls, decorated in the manner of colorful soccer balls. Executed in oil on wooden panel, these pieces began to attract generous critical praise for Gibson from the pages of the Boston Globe, the Partisan Review, and the New Yorker, among others. Gibson’s paintings are filled with subtle yet provocative disjunctions, which challenge the viewer’s initial perceptions of the pieces. While these images would seem at first to be fairly simple atmospheric, realistic renderings of colorful balls, a closer examination will reveal that the surfaces of Gibson’s paintings are deeply scored by the artist in geometric patterns that sometimes conform to, and in other instances defy, the outlines of the spheres rendered in paint. An invisible substructure is suggested in these incisions, which also serve to reinforce the physicality of the painting. Some pieces also include incised and/or painted suggestions of shadowy architectural spaces (arches, hallways, shallow niches) in which the balls are placed. The scale of the objects rendered is ultimately unclear: the balls could be of the large, inflatable type, but they alternatively suggest the density of much smaller decorated wooden croquet balls (a disjunction heightened by the scale of the paintings, which range from larger-than-life to miniatures of only 10 by 6 inches or less). Additionally, the multiple-ball, open-pyramid arrangements depicted in Gibson’s paintings are impossible structures, suggesting that however realistically they may be rendered, they are in fact constructs of the artist’s imagination, straddling the divide between representation and geometric abstraction. John Gibson’s work is currently to be found in numerous corporate and public collections around the country, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, University of Massachusetts, the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the New York Public Library.

John Gibson has been painting delicate still-life arrangements of balls since the 1980's. This focused body of work originated from his desire to successfully depict 3-dimensionality within the constraints of a 2-dimensional surface. Playing around with patterned surfaces and the careful organization of his subject matter, Gibson builds a subtle complexity within his compositions. In this way Gibson’s work is similar to that of Italian painter Giorgio Morandi, whose still-life of earthenware objects served as a constant influence.

Education

1980 B.F.A. Rhode Island School of Design
1982 M.F.A Yale University

Teaching Experience

1996 - 2017 Instructor, Drawing and Painting, Smith College, Northampton, MA
1992 - 1998 Painting, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
1992 - 1998 Visiting Instructor, Intaglio, Amherst College
1989 - 1991 Instructor, Painting, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA

Select Public Collections

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design
Ackland Museum Chapel Hill, NC
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA

Corporate Collections

Fidelity Investments
Mass Mutual
Brown and Wood-NY
Hallmark Corp.
Sherman and Sterling, NY
Wellington Mgmt
BankNorth

Solo Exhibitions

2025

“Still(life)” – Kelli Lundberg Art, Melbourne, Australia
“Object / Image“, John Gibson & Andrew Watel – Nick Ryan Gallery, Boulder, CO

2024

Caldwell Snyder Gallery, St Helena, CA

2023

Caldwell Snyder Gallery, Montecito, CA
“New Paintings” – William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO

2021

“Recent Work” – William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO

2020

Caldwell Snyder Gallery, Montecito, CA
“Jazz” – Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT

2018

“Pieces” – Caldwell Snyder Gallery, St Helena, CA
“New Works” – Gerald Peters Gallery, NY

2016

“The Space in Between” – Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco

2014

“Opposing Forces” – Brattleboro Museum of Art

2012

Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco

2011

“Black” – Gerald Peters Gallery, NY

2009

Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco
“INTERPLAY” – Muse Gallery, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

2008

Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco
“Fifty” – Gerald Peters Gallery, NY

2007

Muse Gallery, Jackson, Wyoming

2006

Gerald Peters Gallery (watercolors), New York
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe

2005

Miller Block Gallery, Boston

2004

Hampshire College, Amherst
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York

2003

Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe

2002

Gerald Peters Gallery, New York

2001

Miller Block Gallery, Boston
Hodges Taylor Gallery, Charlotte, NC
Wendy Evans Fine Art, New York

2000

Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe

1999

“Painting the Improbable” – FMCC, Johnstown, NY

1998

Wendy Evans Fine Art, New York

1997

Miller Block Gallery, Boston

1996

Fine Arts Center, University of MA, Amherst
Rosen Gallery, Paris, France

1995

Perspective Fine Art, New York
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe

1994

Miller Block Gallery, Boston
Perspective Fine Art, New York

1990

Allan Stone Gallery, New York

1989

Harcus Gallery, Boston

1988

Allan Stone Gallery, New York

1987

Harcus Gallery, Boston

Selected Group Exhibitions

2021

“I have an idea” – 1969 Gallery, NYC

2009

“Extreme Possibilities” – curated by Karen Wilkin/ painting center, NY
“Vermont Collects” – Brattleboro Museum and Art Center
“Extreme Possibilities” – Painting Center, NY

2008

“Grey Matter” – Miller Block Gallery, Boston

2004

“Manly – 3” Gescheidle Gallery, Chicago, IL

2002

“Art of the 20th Century” – New York Armory, NY
“The Color Red…” – Gerald Peters, Santa Fe

1999

“Reflections on Surfaces” – Anne Reed Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho

1997

“5 College Faculty Drawing Show” – UMASS, Amherst

1996

“Monoprints” – Miller Block Gallery, Boston
“Printscape” – Miller Block Gallery, Boston

1995

“New Prints” – Miller Block Gallery, Boston

1993

“Fresh Paint” – Miller Block Gallery, Boston

1992

“Highlights from the Permanent Collection” – UMASS, Amherst

1991

“Beyond Realism” – Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, PA
“37 Artists at Capitol Cities/ABC”

1990

“Talent” – Allan Stone Gallery, New York

1989

“DeKooning, Kline and others” – Allan Stone, New York

1988

“Great Expectations” – Harcus Gallery, Boston

1987

“Estes and Others”,” Talent” – Allan Stone, New York

Selected Bibliography

2023

John Gibson: The Space In Between, Caldwell Snyder Gallery

2006

Karen Wilkin, “Gallery Review”, Art in America, October 2006
Grace Glueck, “Gallery Review”, The New York Times, January 27, 2006

2005

Cate McQuaid, “A mix of The Sacred…”, Boston Globe, April 1, 2005

2000

Craig Sullivan, “Artist Explores the Might of Spheres”, Journal North, March 2000
Lynn Cline, “Paint Balls”, The New Mexican, March 2000
Susanna Carlisle, “John Gibson Still life on a Grand Scale”, The Magazine, May 2000

1999

Ken Johnson, “Galleries Uptown”, The New York Times, March 23, 1999

1998

“Short List” (Review and Reproduction), The New Yorker Magazine, November 1998

1997

Cate McQuaid, “Gibson puts Ball in our Court”, The Boston Globe, May 22, 1997

1996

Karen Wilkin, “At the Galleries”, The Partisan Review, Winter 1996

1994

Nancy Stapen, “John Gibson at Miller Block Gallery”, The Boston Globe, October 27, 1994
“Self Portrait”, The New Yorker Magazine, February 14, 1994
Karen Wilkin, “At The Galleries”, The Partisan Review, spring 1994

1989

Elizabeth Gittings, “John Gibson at Harcus Gallery”, Art New England, January 1989
Christine Temin, “Gibson Paints the Familiar, Darkly”, The Boston Globe, January 19, 1989

1987

Christine Temin, “Fad Free Paintings”, The Boston Globe, April 30, 1987