About the Artist

Frank Gardner is an artist working and living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He was born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York. Encouraged in his creative pursuits at home and in school, Frank followed his dream of attending art school. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1986 with a BFA in Painting. A desire to explore the world and find true inspiration for his paintings eventually led him on his second trip to Mexico in 1990. He arrived in San Miguel and has made it his home ever since

Gardner’s painting style is a combination of contemporary impressionism and representational art. He adeptly captures his subject’s mood, whether it be a dramatic landscape, colorful Mexican street scene, or animals in a field. The combination of confident brushwork, dynamic compositions and lively color invokes true character in his work. Although Mexico inspires a large amount of Frank’s paintings, his diverse subject matter includes landscapes from the northeast and western parts of the United States as well as paintings from European travels.
Frank Gardner is represented by several fine galleries in the US and Mexico and his work is part of numerous collections across North America and Europe.

Artist’s Statement

My paintings are a way for me to interpret my experiences. They come from the desire to share the beauty that I see every day by arranging bits of color and ideas to tell a story. Drawn to the colors of a beautiful landscape, or a jumble of shapes and colors in a Mexican marketplace, I try to accurately represent color and light that I see. However, I also adjust and push color if it is useful to convey how the scene makes me feel. Color combinations and interesting juxtapositions of shapes are a lot of what make a subject appealing to me. I look for situations that are unique to a particular place at a certain time, depending on lighting conditions, but also filtered through my mood at the time a piece is painted.

I usually paint in a fairly loose but representational style, influenced in part by the Impressionists, Golden Age Illustrators, and many contemporary artists. I am drawn to fleeting light effects and color while sometimes sacrificing detail in favor of a strong overall design. A controlled chaos or loose spontaneity is my favored look, built upon a structure of solid drawing. My goal is to convey to the viewer my feelings about the scene through my use of color and brushwork. I’ll let the subject and my mood determine how much detail is required to complete each painting.