MERGE: Alumni Exhibition. Featured artist Jason Lee Gimbel

Each week, from now until August 28, the Office of Alumni Relations will do a short Q&A with one to three artists who are featured in the Center for Visual Art’s MERGE: Metro State Alumni Exhibition 2010.

This week’s featured artist is Jason Lee Gimbel. Gimbel graduated from Metro State in 1998 with a BFA in Drawing and Printmaking. His work has displayed in venues throughout Denver.

Metro State: How would you characterize your art?
Jason Gimbel: My art can be described as a deconstruction of my own processes and ideas. I am a conceptual figurative artist.

MS: Tell me about your latest work and why you are inspired by it.
JG: The pieces that I’m creating are digital assemblages of my figure drawing. Most on my work consists of destroying and rebuilding my own work.

MS: In what ways did your Metro State professors influence your work?
JG: Reflecting back on my Metro days, I see how certain influences dominated my art and how I slowly broke away from that influence. I try to be mindful of how external noise seeps into my work.

MS: How has your work evolved since you graduated?
JG: I focus more on mastering what I do; it’s about the refinement of my process and tapping into deeper thoughts that create a narrative. When I was in college, I was more concerned with earning a degree.

MS: Tell me why you submitted the pieces that you did for MERGE.
JG: I am proud to be a part of the Metro Alumni and fully support the CVA and its staff. I think that it’s an amazing facility and happy that the CVA has a permanent home in the Arts District. Why would I not submit my work?

MS: How do you feel about this opportunity to present your work for Metro State’s new CVA facility?
JG: By being included in this exhibition, I feel that I am helping to continue grow the legacy of the CVA and Metro’s Art program. It’s an honor !

MS: Is there anything I’m not asking you that you want to share with me?
JG: I have a sweet tooth; I’m a smart ass with random epileptic attacks of seriousness and somewhere in the murky mess of my life I manage to be an artist.

For more information on Jason, please visit his Web site.