Capturing Moments in Time

Gavin Bridges, Capturing Moments in Time

Gavin Bridges is a Louisiana-based artist who wants to create everything at the same time. His artistic energy cannot be contained in one medium. Instead, he is constantly working between media ranging from jewelry to painting, to drawing and crafting. Easily bored, he shuns complacency as he moves from one topic to another in his paintings. Don’t allow his penchant for moving from one item to the next to fool you about the importance of his work and the meaning behind it. Bridges stated that “painting is capturing a moment in time” and that is exactly what he’s doing. Like a bug wing captured in hardened sap for eternity, Gavin is working to capture his thoughts and experience on canvas so he can share these fleeting moments with his audience.

Focused on capturing the regionalism of central Louisiana and the South, Bridges can apprehend his environment in a way that preserves the current landscape through his unique lens for future generations. His view of the landscape, as a gay man in the South, enables him to express feelings and moods viscerally. Gavin doesn’t hold anything back, wanting his art “to speak for itself, to tell its own story.”

His paintings are inviting. From the rich texture of the paint to the greens warmed by a vibrant blue sky, it is easy to get lost in one of his paintings. Even in the darker paintings, where the buildings feel abandoned or debris litters the ground, you still feel safe looking inside at the scene Bridges has crafted for you. That’s the beauty underlying his work. He wants you to feel emotions when gazing upon his work. You may not have the same feelings he has about the work, and that’s just fine with him. He didn’t paint the work for you, he painted it for himself. “If the audience gets it, they get it and if they don’t, they don’t.” He shared “I paint things that are really meaningful to me or that I have a connection to.”

This sentiment is evident in his oil painting, Take Me to Churches, painted in 2022. (see Fig. 2) In this image the viewer feels like they are walking through the grass on a warm sunny day when a break in the trees reveals an old building. It doesn’t look too run down but the sign is upside down which makes you feel a little hesitant. The dark shadow cast by the trees over the front step gives an ominous feeling as well. Despite this, the viewer still feels welcome entering into this scene. Bridges has created an image that is both inviting and cautious. He is letting the viewer know that not everything is as safe or happy as it appears. Further mirroring this sentiment from his artist statement. “My art represents the idea of beautiful thoughts that look to be pleasant and safe but are secretly not.”

In Bridge’s 2023 work, It’s Not Always Greener on The Other Side, we are confronted with a series of seven panels that allow us to step through the trees and look upon a church. The church appears large, white, clean, and inviting. (see Fig. 3) Until you look around it and notice the yellow grass and immature trees. Then you start to feel like maybe you’re looking at a production of a church playing at religion. The older, mature trees you are looking through might be the safest shade of all. That is what is so refreshing about Gavin’s imagery. He is painting his feelings and emotions in such a light and open manner that even the dark subject matter feels like a safe place to land.

Fig. 1. Bridges, Gavin. “Self-Portrait.” Gavin Bridges Fine Art, 29, January 2024, https://www.gavinbridgesart.com/#/

Fig. 2. Bridges, Gavin. “Take Me to Churches.” Oil on Canvas, 2022.

Fig. 3. Bridges, Gavin. “It’s Not Always Greener on The Other Side.” Oil on Canvas, 2023.

Works Cited

"Artist Statement." Gavin Bridges Fine Art, www.gavinbridgesart.com/#/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2024.