Artist Profile: Kevin Gillentine (Plus a Sneak Peek of His Newest Work)

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New Orleans has long been a haven for artists. It served as a home to writers such as Mark Twain and William Faulkner, built a now-famous live music scene, and supports a rich visual arts presence with galleries throughout the city. I recently sat down with Kevin Gillentine, a 25-year fixture in the New Orleans art community whose tranquil oil landscape paintings are sought after by collectors, interior decorators, and celebrities across the country. We spoke in his eponymous gallery on Magazine Street about his method, his message through his art, and his newest work in abstracts. Here is what he shared:

You are best known for your landscape paintings. What does your creative process look like?

My inspiration for landscapes is mostly from the area where I grew up in northern Mississippi. I cannot paint en plein air because most of my paintings are large scale — it’s just too big of a mess — so I work from sketches, photographs, and from memory. Sometimes I’ll take two pictures, sketches, or photographs and I will marry them, taking one element from one and another element from another, making an imaginary place. While each painting is named for a place, it’s really meant as an American landscape — it could be California or a reservoir in Oklahoma. For me, it’s about trying to elicit a feeling, a mood, a memory, a peacefulness. That’s what resonates the most.

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Your style has a smoky, almost ethereal quality. What are you trying to convey to the viewer?

My goal is to make my paintings look like a memory, like a place you’ve been before, a place you recall, or a place I recall. I want to give a feeling of peacefulness, tranquility, simplicity. I want my works to be vague. I don’t have any hard lines in my paintings and few structures; they are mostly all-natural and elusive. I want to make the viewer think of things, and I think that’s been the most fun about being an artist: when someone comes up to me and says, “This reminds me of when I was a child and I would go to my grandmother’s house and we would look out over the cotton fields and the sun would look like that.” And I know that the painting probably doesn’t look like what they saw, but it makes them remember those things, and I think that’s amazing. I think when I get feedback like that, then I’ve been very successful.

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Landscapes are the core of your work, but I understand you are working on a show of abstract pieces. What made you explore a new genre?

I started work on the abstracts for two reasons. First, I think it’s important to experiment, to do different things from time to time. I’m never going to stop doing landscapes, but I think doing other things helps keep my landscapes fresh. It informs my landscapes and informs all my work. Second, I have been asked by several people, “Can’t you apply your style to genres other than landscapes?” So at the request of a gallery owner, I tried my style in abstracts, and they turned out so well that I’m going to do a whole show of them.  

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What has it been like to work in a new genre?

The fun thing about the abstracts is that they look like me, they look like my style. You can tell between an abstract and a landscape that the same artist worked on it. I love that it’s still me, but it’s a different energy and there’s a freedom behind that. My abstracts are almost like my landscapes with no limits: I’m using the same techniques, but nothing has to look like a tree or look like a cloud. It can just be color and image and space. So I’m enjoying doing that, and I think abstract works are going to end up being a big part of my repertoire.

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What do you want people to take away from your art?

I want my art to tell people to be peaceful, be calm, take a minute to yourself. I want my art to put you in a good place, bring you a moment of peace. I think people crave that. My art is not necessarily a statement piece that’s loud, but rather a quiet statement. My art gives that message to me, reminds me to focus on quiet, simple, uncomplicated things. It’s my message to my viewers, but it’s also my message to myself.

Keep your eyes on Kevin’s Instagram for new work. If you see something you like, act quickly — two of his three completed abstract pieces sold to the first or second people who saw them. Visit the Kevin Gillentine Gallery at 3917 Magazine Street to appreciate more of his paintings in person.