"Jimmy was prolific and if he was going to be known as anything he would like to be known as a surrealist, not a surrealist artist, but a surrealist person." – Robert Morgan, Faulkner Morgan Archive, Lexington, KY
Tibor de Nagy Gallery is pleased to announce Jimmy Gordon - Surrealist, an exhibition of paintings created between the 1990s to the mid-2000s. This is the gallery's first exhibition with the artist and the artist’s first in New York.
Jimmy Gordon (1947 - 2022) was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and based there, apart from occasional long-term stays in Florida and other locations, and was always integral to Lexington’s vibrant art scene. Gordon knew he would be an artist from the age of eight. He was kicked out of high school for long hair and subsequently drafted into the Vietnam War. He saw significant action there and returned home to Kentucky after his tour of duty. In a film about his life and work, he points to a building: “That’s where I got all my brains. I graduated from that college over there—the VA Hospital.” However, he did in fact, go to college and received a BFA from the University of Kentucky in the early 1970s. He studied with the renowned local artist Henry Faulkner, who became a lifelong friend. He was a devotee of the circus and circus people and worked for a short time behind the scenes in the circus while living in Sarasota, Florida near the Ringling headquarters. The circus remained a great source of inspiration for his artwork throughout his life.
Jimmy Gordon pursued many creative avenues, including playing in rock and roll bands until the end of his life and customizing 1950s/60s cars. He also made two films, Dames of Discipline and Skateboard Devil Worshipers. One of his more immersive creative undertakings was his alter ego, whom he named La Jimberly. As her, he dressed in a female persona 24 hours a day, sometimes living in that persona for weeks and months at a time. During these times, he always signed his artwork Jimberly rather than Gordon.
Gordon wrote in 1998 about his painting process as follows:
"When I’m in my 'Paint World,' I’m performing an eternal magic ritual with the first caveman on earth; and together, through a casual transformation of souls, he and I are one, creating an elaborate repetition of the same thing. I know that something as unknown and totally alien as art, does not come from us, just as I know that we do not ourselves make a dream or an inspiration. Art – and dreams – somehow arise of their own accord."
Jimmy Gordon had many exhibitions in his lifetime in Kentucky and Florida. Notable previous one-person exhibitions included Bamboozled: Sideshow, 2002, Living Arts and Science Center, Lexington, KY; The Fish Thrower Show, Three-Legged Dog Gallery, FL, 2000; Lonesome Echoes, Fusion Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL, 1999; and My Paintbrush Has Eyes, Red Star, Ybor City, FL, 1999.
