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Better to Burn Out than to Fade Away,2006

NB: So you are citing bacon as your primary influence or are there others?

TG: My influences were Velasquez and Caravaggio if not Holbein. As a figurative painter who lived and worked through the dark ages of the 90`s, when painting was disregarded everywhere, I stuck to figurative painting when it was not cool. I didn't try to be a conceptual artist just to get into the game.

NB: How can you elaborate on the situation in the european art scene now from the perspective of the political climate in relation to the artist and the stylistic demands in relation to current trends in painting?
TG: Firstly, I think a political climate anywhere, good or bad, is material for an artist -he should only be free to express himself. In any epoch stylistic demands are a form of self censorship. I don`t follow trends.

NB: Do you have political issues in your work?
TG: They are present yes. The viewer should have something to chew on while sipping his white wine -I prefer to take a subtle approach however.

NB: What does a picture like the one about fox news mean to you politically?
TG: It is about cheerleading for an illegal war.

NB: There is a combination of morbidity and humor in your work. Why do you find old photographs interesting as source material?
TG: How they relate to the present.

NB: Is there an element of anger in your work? It seems like you are using historical photos for a reason.

TG: Its not so much anger as "if one doesn`t study history, they are doomed to repeat it" and we seem to be repeating things that my subjects endured 50 or a 100 years ago

Construct with marzipan, icing, silverware...

Openings:

12.02.06 McCaig-Welles Gallery 129 Roebling st. Brooklyn, NY

12.06.06 Scope Miami with Galerie R�merapotheke Stand 20