GREG RAGLAND

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Gregory is a painter, sculptor and public artist working in a variety of media. He was born in Georgia and grew up in Colorado. He studied architecture at Arizona State University, received his BFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California, and his MFA from the University of Utah. He began his career as an editorial illustrator in New York City doing magazine and book cover for major publications and publishers. After receiving his MFA, Gregory transitioned to working full-time as a fine artist. He has also juried art shows, served on numerous arts councils and arts boards and instructed at a number of Universities and Colleges. His work is in collections nationally and internationally. He has lived and worked in Los Angeles, New York City, Park City, Utah, and now Southern Utah.

Artist Statement

Gregory Ragland’s work has a foundation in multiple disciplines: painting, sculpture and public art. His artistic journey has led him down different paths of subject matter and materials that includes figurative sculpture and painting, photo realistic painting, abstracted landscapes, and sculptures in resin, ceramics, bronze, stainless steel, aluminum, and wood. His color palette ranges from using bright color as a major focus to a subtle limited palette where texture and surface development play the vital roll. His work is divided between his large scale public art commissions and his studio work represented in galleries. He is like a two headed coin, in a comfortable equilibrium between two-dimensional paintings and three-dimensional sculptural work. His diversity of subject matter, from realism to the abstract and his search for new ways to do something different by combining new material, or seeing something that is old as new for the first time fuel a never ending creative quest.  His work can be broken into categories, yet all those categories of identification are blurred into the last new piece.

Ragland’s current series “Parallel Layers” pulls from his figurative work where he began experimenting with plexiglass, resin and transparent materials. The symbiotic relations between acrylic paint and the plexiglass surface generates a magical translucency and transparency of the materials allowing for a shallow depth not unlike a leaf or twig embedded into a frozen surface. He begins with total abandonment and spontaneity. Throwing, dribbling, splattering and pouring paint onto the surface, removing his hand from the process and allowing the materials to generate an artistic reaction. Being patient and layering upon layering upon layering until intuition moves him to use his hands. Then he uses squeegees and  unconventional tools to create structure, geometry and composition. With these tools he makes a variety of marks and textures to move the eye through the entirety of the painting. A push and pull between adding and subtracting material completes the process. “Parallel Layers” does not rely on the recognizable and familiar. It draws the viewer to the unfamiliar yet recognizable based on their own layered memories.