ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES - DEXTER MCGOWAN

In the art world, the phrase "free spirit" may seem overused and trite. In Dexter McGowan's case however, it is difficult to imagine a more apt description. McGowan does not remember his parents, whom he lost at the tender age of eight. He spent the next seven years on his maternal grandparents' farm in the rural Midwest. At age 15, with a forged birth certificate, he joined the Merchant Marine and has never looked back. He has lost count of the number of times he has circled the globe and the number of occupations he has been employed at-from sailor to rodeo rider, from vineyard worker to medic in the military.

To follow his lifelong wanderings and then to see his work, it comes as no surprise that Gauguin and the Fauvist school are both McGowan's heroes and his chief artistic influences. He first read about them during those long early days at sea, and has returned often, spending many years at a time, to the south Pacific islands where Gauguin lived out the last years of his own life. Though entirely self taught, McGowan's work exhibits the same confident individualism and sensuality that mark the disturbing yet masterly vision of those artists he most admires. From still life, to portraiture, to landscape, McGowan's vivid use of color, his earthy application of texture, and their mysteriously exotic environments both captivate and engulf the viewers. Dexter McGowan's paintings bridge the boundaries between reality and fantasy while they seem to explode the boundaries of their frames with raw energy and emotion. One immediately knows that they are the evocative products of an unbridled free spirit.