Gay Outlaw (born 1959) is an American artist working in sculpture, photography and printmaking. She is known for her "rigorous and unexpected explorations of material".[1] She is based in San Francisco, California.[2][3]

Gay Outlaw
Born1959
EducationInternational Center of Photography
École de Cuisine La Varenne
Alma materUniversity of Virginia
AwardsSECA Art Award
Websitehttps://www.gayoutlaw.com/

Early life and education

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Gay Outlaw was born in 1959 in Mobile, Alabama to Arthur R. and Dorothy (Smith) Outlaw.[2][4][5] She received her BA in French from the University of Virginia in 1981.[2] She studied pastry from 1981 until 1982 at the École de Cuisine La Varenne, a cooking school in Paris.[2] After Paris, she moved to New York and took classes at the International Center for Photography between 1987-1988.[6][4]

Work

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Outlaw's early work was made of perishable items such as pastry and caramels. In 1995, she created a 34-foot-long wall of fruitcake bricks and installed it at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.[3] She embraces the transformations that occur with these time sensitive mediums, challenging people's expectations of sculpture being stable.[7] Outlaw's recent work includes assemblages with her photographs and cast glass sculptures she calls "puddles".[1]

When asked the meaning of her work, Outlaw said, "The message is no message. I call it formal free association".[3]

Outlaw continually explores duality in her work, for example, interior and exterior, or solids and voids.[1] One of her notable pieces, Black Hose Mountain, is a huge sculpture consisting of black hoses filled with plaster.

Outlaw is represented by Gallery Anglim Gilbert in San Francisco.[8]

Selected exhibitions

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Solo exhibitions

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1990 – The Friends of Photography at the Ansel Adams Center, San Francisco, California

1996 – “New Pictures and Sculpture,” Refusalon, San Francisco, CA and Littlejohn Contemporary Art, New York, New York

1998 – SFMoMA's SECA Art Award Exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California[9]

2003 – “New Work by Gay Outlaw,” University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, Virginia

2004 – “Impermeable,” Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, California

2005 – “Three-legged Inversions,” Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California

2007–2008 – “Gay Outlaw: Recent Work,” Gatehouse Gallery, di Rosa Preserve, Napa, California

2009 – “Gay Outlaw: New Sculpture,” Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, California

2011 – “Gay Outlaw: The Velocity of Ideas,” Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, California

2012 – "New Work, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, California.[10]

2014 – "Home", Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, California.[6]

2016–2017 – "Mutable Object", Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Gay Outlaw : mutable object. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Eugene, OR. 2016. ISBN 9780988554665. OCLC 993764573.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. ^ a b c d e "Gay Outlaw Mutable Object". Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. 2016. Retrieved 2018-10-23.
  3. ^ a b c "Gay Outlaw | Artspace". Artspace. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
  4. ^ a b Foerstner, Abigail (14 June 1991). "2 Kinds of Portraits from Dennis Darling and Gay Outlaw". Chicago Tribune. p. 74.
  5. ^ "Dorothy Smith Outlaw". Press-Register. January 31, 2022. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
  6. ^ a b "Gay Outlaw". anglimgilbertgallery.com. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
  7. ^ Bishop, Janet (1998). SECA Art Award 1998. San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. pp. 9–12.
  8. ^ "Gay Outlaw". Artspace. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  9. ^ "1998 SECA Art Award". SFMOMA. Retrieved 2018-10-23.
  10. ^ Whiting, Sam (June 28, 2012). "Artist Gay Outlaw to open 1st solo show in 3 years". SFGATE. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
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Official website