Gary Westford is a representational and narrative painter/conceptual artist whose work focuses on views of an American “landscape” which addresses concerns about the environment, social equity, and amendment rights. His work uses surreal juxtapositions designed to promote a “shock of recognition.” He often combines paintings with found-object items and architectural building materials to create site-specific environments. Westford’s paintings depict images of the landscape, sky and cloud formations, bodies of water, and vehicles of transportation (1940s-50s automobiles, aircraft, boats) along with three-dimensional found architectural items such as vintage screen doors, prayer stands, and classical wooden columns.

He was born in Oakland, California, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied with Bay Area Figurative painters Elmer Bischoff and Joan Brown. While at Berkeley, he also studied with and was influenced by the work of Robert Colescott whose biting social satire paintings of the African American experience resonated with him. Westford moved to Oregon in the late 1970s and began a long career as an arts educator committed to social justice and change. He worked for twenty-three years in juvenile and adult prison systems in California and Oregon. In 1991, he was the recipient of a national teaching award in corrections education for his work using art within prison systems to promote growth and social change for inmates.

Recent Work

His most recent installation exhibition, One If By Land (October, 2019) is based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s well known poem Paul Revere’s Ride (1861). The poem recounts how Revere and others called for action against the British in 1775 during the earliest beginnings of the newly forming American Democracy, when the survival of the young republic was uncertain. The installation provides a narrative ride across a history of time that depicts the immigrant journey and life in America, World War Two and its aftermath at Hiroshima, sacred landscapes, and environmental abuses of pristine environments.

His painting American Landscape with Victorian Prayer Stand is included in the current 2020 online exhibition Art In The Time Of Corona curated by gallery director Yessica Torres at Dab Art in Los Angeles.

In 2020-21 Gary Westford’s work has been included in ten national juried exhibitions in the Pacific Northwest, California, Oregon, Michigan and Florida.