Gaylund K. Stone

Originally from Willoughby, Ohio, Gaylund Stone began painting while a student at Princeton in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was there that he studied with Esteban Vicente and participated in a seminar with Helen Frankenthaler.

He painted sporadically after graduating from college, traveling across the country and investigating a newfound faith, a faith that would serve to challenge and direct his life in the world and his life as a painter.

Teaching positions in Oklahoma and Wisconsin led to master’s and doctoral degrees in art education. Studies focused on the role of artmaking in human behavior and work in the studio served both as a respite from the academic world and as an opportunity to examine thoughts and beliefs in depth.

The painter may often be the worst person to speak about the work – there is the attraction of delusion and the recognition that the results of activity in the studio may only poorly reflect the experiences and thoughts that were its source. Suffice it to say that most of the images are attempts to capture a world view – to see our physical, transient lives as suspended between the glory of eternity and the despair of absolute annihilation. They tend to be ‘portraits’ rather than landscapes, revealing more of the soul than the mere physical appearance of natural surroundings.

Beginning with oils, the work shifted to acrylic in the late 1970s and, after the 1990s, oil-based media were often used over an acrylic underpainting. Recent work also incorporates synthetic gold leaf applied in the final stages of the painting. Most of the work is on canvas, but there is the occasional use of Masonite and paper as painting surfaces, particularly in the smaller pieces.