My paintings are traces of forgotten things, fragments of voices left behind by the handmade — a child’s wax figure, wood-fired pottery, a song half-heard in passing. They seem to arrive from some hidden corridor of time, carrying secrets that can’t quite be named. I paint to listen for them, to see what might surface before they slip back into silence.
Douglas Gates (b.1950, San Diego, CA) is a self-trained painter and collage artist, sustained by an unfailing connection to his muse since he began painting in 1970. He currently lives in the Chicago area. Among his early influences were abstract artists Mark Tobey and Robert Motherwell. Around 2007, after a hiatus to raise his two sons, he returned to his work with renewed energy and inspiration. Since then he has been creating art in earnest almost every day. His work has been exhibited in galleries in Michigan and Illinois.
