Ajg bw 2014

I’m an entirely self-taught painter; yet I was also blessed with the profound mentorship of several professional artists who inspired me to cultivate everyday life as an art form.

My life became a journey into self-development and a quest to capture my own form of creative expression.

As a child, I took art classes at the Phoenix Art Museum and was a member of Phoenix district honor choir. I was also a member of a university gospel choir, and I’ve been writing and producing music for over 30 years, collaborating with producers and engineers like Danny Saber and John X Volaitis in Los Angeles, and Frederik Birket-Smith (Strøm Festival) and Andreas Mørck in Denmark.

I began painting seriously after visiting an exhibition featuring the German expressionist Max Beckmann at LACMA in Los Angeles in 1984, and pursued songwriting and painting simultaneously (especially after being discouraged by entertainment executives in Los Angeles who insisted that I wouldn’t be taken seriously as an artist unless I focused on one creative discipline...).

After living and working in Los Angeles and Phoenix throughout the 80s, I moved to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1991 and established collaborative relationships in the art, music and film communities there.

A fascination with the concept of ‘lowbrow’ art led to a series of drawings on Post-It notes. In 1999, they were uploaded to a website where people on the internet began discovering them. Six of the drawings were subsequently commissioned by Minneapolis arts and culture publication, The Rake magazine, to illustrate a feature article celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Post-It note.

After this period of experimentation, paintings of futuristic subterranean landscapes, and obscure light diffusions began to emerge. Eventually, these ideas turned into a series of paintings and drawings exploring spatial distance, morphing into an ongoing study of aerial perspectives featuring city lights at night as seen from an airplane, as well as studies of “inner cosmology” and imaginary microscopic images.

Since re-establishing a presence in the U.S. I’ve exhibited work at several galleries and art spaces in the downtown Phoenix area including:

Along the way, I’ve been a creative consultant and cultural liaison with record labels, artists, choreographers, producers, promoters, and production companies, including Strøm Festival, Zentropa (TVropa), Mega Records (Ace of Base), and PG Sounds in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as Stateside Presents / President Gator Records, and Opendance AZ in Phoenix, AZ.