PROFESSIONAL ARTIST & PUBLISHED AUTHOR
EDUCATION
Alberta College of Art and Design (now AUA)
1995-1999 Majored in Painting
AUTHOR
“Shaun Gamache: Copywrite 2015” 2015
Available online, for sale, and in the AUA library
- 445 pages of art and stories of my life
- The art is a mystical journey of my waking up process
- A record of my life's work from 1999 to 2015
“Journey into the Abyss”
- Available on my website
“Stepping into Compassion”
- Available on my website
BIOGRAPHY
Born and raised in Calgary, I went to The Alberta College Of Art and Design (ACAD) now Alberta University of the Arts (AUA) in the late 90's. I had a psychotic break in 2004 and have been trying to make sense of my world ever since.
Living with a mental disability, I have learned that to change the world I must change myself. This adaptation comes through in my art. I paint automatic self-portrait paintings, exploring my journey. I share my faces painted to share with the world a part of myself and my lived experience with Schizophrenia. By exploring the paradoxes of the real much of my work looks Abstract Expressionist or Action painting with the larger scale works.
I work fast. However, when they are done, I am always looking for the image. In fact, there are always multiple images depending on who is interpreting them. There is really more than one painting in one.
At one time I would rotate the painting and another fully complete objective painting would emerge. Some can see these, others can not. If you can see a teddy bear in the clouds you can see images in my art. I see through eyes much of the world does not because I experience being human differently than dominant society. My work explores myself, and I share that with the world. It might be egotistical, or it is an exploration of the macrocosm by looking at the microcosm. I must paint and create. It shows me where I am going. I apprenticed to the Sweet Medicine Sundance Path www.dtmms.org in 1999 and the Rosicrucian Order www.rosicrucian.org in 2001. I am now in process of downloading my own wheels and have created an oracle. My art continues to delve into mysticism, shamanism and the metaphysical.
PROFESSIONAL SHOWINGS
July – Dec 2019 InkUbator Gallery (Northland Mall) Calgary AB
November 2019 Rumble House Art Auction Calgary AB
November 2019 Art Battle, Live painting competition Calgary AB
October 2012 Studio C in Art Central, Curated solo show, Shaun Gamache's Self Portraits Calgary AB
May 2012 Group Self-help show, Second Cup Kensington Calgary AB
October 2011 Group Self-help show, Second Cup Kensington Calgary AB
August 2011 Curated Summer Art Show, Marion McGrath Gallery Calgary AB
February 2011 North Mount Pleasant Arts Center Calgary AB
August 2008 Weeds Cafe Calgary AB
December 15, 2007 - Jan 5, 2008 Second Cup - Kensington, Calgary AB
December 2007 - March 2008 Curated Group Show Anne Archers Gallery of Contemporary Art Calgary AB
November 3, 2007 “Mad about art” Live painting performance Federation of Canadian Artists
September 14, 2007 Curated group show Fissure Untitled Arts Society Summer 2007 Calgary Fringe Festival Calgary AB
January - February 2007 "Automatic Painting" solo show Illuminata Books
February 2007 "Automatic Painting" solo show TheRoasterie Calgary AB
January – March 2007 Anarchist Group Show (2 pieces) Haymarket Café
1996 Solo show Java Sharks
1995 - 1999 Other Exhibitions during College Calgary AB
ARTIST STATEMENT
The why of why I am here is so that humanity can continue to exist on this planet. I have also come to know myself as an artist. I am an automatiste in that I do automatic drawings and paintings. I have done abstract and figurative work. Lately it has been a series of portraits, however they come from my subconscious. I am also working on portraits for others as part of my practice. In my painted faces they are reflections of who I am in my masculine and feminine identities.
If I can say, “I am the Universe”, then everything in the universe has something to do with me. I am a creator and co-creator with everything else in the universe. There is also the world, then there is my world. My world consists of everything I am aware of in my circle of influence.
All other objective things can be part of the world, but don’t have anything to do with me on a subjective level because I am not the one experiencing it. Therefore, everything that happens to me is subjective as it comes through my filters and is interpreted by me. As everything I experience does this how could anything be anything other that subjective that I am experiencing?
My paintings come from other places yet are still channelled through me to become physical on a piece of paper or in a painting. I am bringing fifth dimension, the dream time, into third dimension, the artwork. This is the work of the automatiste. To do without doing. To step into no mind. Simply be.
Therefore, my faces become a reflection of myself as I am interpreting my dream on a piece of paper of canvas. In my abstract work I see images in the work. It starts as an abstract expressionist piece, the as I view the painting, it become for me and objective image. Some only see colour field, and that is fine. One the piece has left me and is given to the public it is up to them to find their own subjective reality.
