Biography

Painting is a passion of mine which I have been seriously pursuing since 1992, the year that I transferred to California State University, Hayward. Mel Ramos, the famous artist, was my painting instructor and mentor. He encouraged me to pursue graduate studies in art, which I did, and received my Masters in Fine Arts degree from San Jose State University in December of 1997. From 1998 through 2001, I worked with a small staff and tons of volunteers at a non-profit arts organization in Oakland, Pro Arts Gallery. I decided to pursue teaching and became an instructor of art at a couple community colleges and an art center in the Bay Area, CA from 2001 - 2005. Today I live on the Central Coast, CA, and am a tenured, full-time college art instructor and artist.

Since childhood, I have always enjoyed making images through drawing using various color media (i.e. crayons, chalk, spray paint, wax, acrylic & oil paint) as well as writing. Painting for me has been a mechanism for digesting and exploring experiences, dreams and entities visually, including issues of consumer culture, relationships, spirituality, and politics. One of my personal goals as an artist to manifest warmth, love and peace. Furthermore, I wish to create images that contribute to critical insights and thought processes, especially when it comes to the current and age-old dilemmas such as: the "search" for a fountain of youth, racial profiling, economic meltdowns, "divine", miraculous apparitions, and on and on. I truly believe that art is a powerful platform for understanding and making sense of the world.


© Gabriel Navar 1989 - 2010