Jimi Gleason has spent his career exploring the reflective possibilities of a painterly surface. “By using an iridescent surface coat, I have managed to create visual spaces that respond to both the play of light and the location of the viewer,” he says. Mixing nontraditional materials such as silver deposit with acrylic paints, Gleason’s surfaces are highly reactive to light and shifts in the viewer’s position. Rather than using focusing on the surface as an end in itself, his paintings track the play of light and the movement of the viewer across the surface, thereby acting as a mirror onto the external world.

Through this movement, Gleason hopes to induce a meditative experience for his viewers. Gleason was born and raised in Southern California. He graduated with a BA in Fine Art from UC Berkeley in 1985, later moving to New York. Upon his return to California he worked as a studio assistant for renowned abstract painter, Ed Moses. His work is included in many important private and public collections, both here and abroad.

“I use paint in a determined way, which means the physical and metaphysical force of my paintings is a direct result of my intuitive process. By finishing with an iridescent surface coat, I inject a certain presence, bringing the light through, eradicating the very surface.

This creates a depth of visual space that responds to both the play of light and the location of the viewer. Forms emerge and recede within shifting fields of color as the paintings simultaneously react to and modify their physical environment. By letting the image gradually evolve through the painting activity I design the painting to ultimately create a presence in which the viewer is given the opportunity to explore a dynamic expression of space articulated through color and form.”