Gabe Fonorow
Kernersville, North Carolina
American contemporary artist utilizing geometric abstraction to explore rhythm, line, and the grace of human endurance.
Message
Self-taught artist Gabe Fonorow began his art career in Brooklyn, New York, debuting abstract pen-and-ink work in a 2014 exhibition at Brooklyn Fire Proof East. Later that year, he moved to North Carolina, where he clarified his style: undulating, organic shapes systematically composed of straight lines. That his style is so deeply tied to rhythm and movement is no surprise, given Gabe's formal education in jazz performance from William Paterson University. The connection between his visual work and music is most apparent in Marathon – a series of twenty-six works, each composed of one mile (with the exception of miles 13 and 26, at 1.1 miles each) of lines. This series premiered at Sawtooth School for Visual Art in April 2018, an exhibition which cemented his place in the contemporary Southern art scene, both among peers and collectors.
The primary theme of his work is the beauty that manifests in human endurance. His persistence, from line to mile to marathon, exemplifies the struggle and victory of art. To that end, Gabe also coaches fellow creatives, from beginners to seasoned professionals, offering feedback on process and product. He finds that the most efficient way to get more art into the world is to not only make art, but to encourage and support fellow artists.
Recently, he relocated to Hawaii, where the vibrant natural environment inspires him to continue exploring form, color, and (of course) line.
Statement
Reams have been written about the deleterious impacts of the internet on attention spans, patience, interpersonal skills, and more. However, the impact I observe most acutely is the preference for easy breadth of comprehension versus depth of knowledge. Most people who are seeking information will enter a query into a search engine, select the first result, spend a few minutes skimming the content, and feel confident that they both know and understand the topic.
My work exhibits the complexities of the simplest topic -- in this case, a straight black line -- which can only be experienced and internalized (i.e. known) via dedicated study, contemplation, and experimentation. I’ve spent five years with straight black lines and I have only uncovered a fraction of the possibilities.
Athletes understand the value of experiential, dedicated study better than most. What is simpler than a step? What is more dedicated than 33,000 consecutive repetitions? Thus, I chose to submit myself as completely to the line as marathoners do to the run. This work is a study in persistence, and a testament to the fundamentally human and therefore creative process of study, trial and error, and firsthand experience.
I’ve been asked why I don’t execute these works on a computer. There’s no doubt that the initial vision of each piece could be quickly rendered digitally, but the creative process - gestating the vision and producing a work - would be stunted and the product would be sterile. Thousands of slight variations from line to line soften the geometry, and lend an organic tone to each piece. This quality cannot exist in the initial vision - it is the human process of executing a vision by hand, over a period of months, which gives the work life. There are no shortcuts to living works, and expertise is the perfect example of a living, ever-shifting work of creativity that has the potential to exist within anyone.