Jimmie Gersen is a West Seattle performance artist who prefers to paint large scale paintings. Using his hands, brushes and regular house paint, Gersen has painted with rock bands and in other venues.
Jimmy Gerson is an artist, a performance artist to be more specific.
He has done performance art in association with a hard rock band, but during a recent West Seattle Artwalk he chose the Bohemian Restaurant as his venue. Placing a large canvas on the wall, Gerson then applies house paint with his hands and brushes to create his paintings.
"Ever since I was little I would always draw", said Gersen, " but I didn't really start to paint until 1992 to 1993 after I graduated from college."
His day job is the catering operations manager for Salty's on Alki. It's a job he enjoys. But his real passion is large scale art. Why large?
"I think small scale is too confining," he said, "large scale lets me do whatever I want."
Gersen does have a role model as an artist and based on his style you can see the influence.
"First and foremost it's Picasso," he said. "Everything he does. Shapes, colors forms, it's free, it's expression. I guess it's him."
Gersen's approach to painting doesn't involve a high degree of planning. He listens to music and lets the mood that develops direct his effort.
"I'm not really thinking. I'm just thinking about what's gonna work next," he said, "Where it's going to go from there. Color, what's gonna go with what color. Darks, shapes, lights...that's pretty much it."
He uses a lot of bold colors and paints with a kind of directed emotional response. He's a performance artist who paints with his heart.
Gersen can be reached at gersenart@yahoo.com
