We were lucky to catch up with Arnaud Gibersztajn recently and have shared our conversation below.

Arnaud, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

Mine was an unusual route to the art world. I painted for years, and I supported myself working as a waiter and maitre’d at a restaurant in New York City. This part of my story is common—the struggling artist whose day job supports his true passion. It was one of those restaurants you read about in glossy magazines, where pop singers and movie stars go, as well as gallerists and art collectors. As I got to know the clientele, it slowly came out that I was a painter. The owner of the restaurant asked me to hang a piece in the front room. Prominent, influential people, whom I had gotten to know as customers over the years, saw my work. They were drawn to it and purchased it for their own collections. I had my first exhibitions with gallerists who made dinner reservations through me. My buyers and gallerists had gotten to know me as a person before they got to know my work. It’s usually the other way around—-but perhaps it shouldn’t be. What is often now a purely commercial transaction, the buying and selling of artwork, was enriched by the personal bonds I had forged through my other work at the restaurant. My two vocations informed each other and for a time were one and the same.

This story makes it sound like I just fell into selling and showing my art. But that’s not the case. It was not easy. I worked for years in the restaurant business before I ever showed my work to anyone. And then it took me years to bring myself to tell others, “I am an artist.” But once I voiced these words, things began to fall into place. The act of uttering these words with intent and conviction released energy into my universe that set a course in motion, the trajectory that brought me to where I am today. I no longer work at the restaurant and I’ve moved on to other galleries, mostly in Japan, but I still place great value in getting to know my collectors and representatives on a personal level and having them know something about me. I feel much better about putting my work out into the world when I know it is going to a good place to which I have a connection.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a self-taught artist whose passion for painting developed at a very young age. It was not until I moved from Paris to New York at the age of 25, however, that I began a serious exploration of color, line, figure, and abstraction.

After studying with Jan Wunderman who was my mentor and at The Art Students League, my first group show was at P.S. 122 in 1997. In December 1998, I developed what would become my personal style of abstraction—variations of color fields using oils and a palette knife.

I have had several solo shows in New York, Paris and throughout Japan, and my work has been in numerous group shows.
My paintings are in many prominent private collections in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Fiji, Turkey, Lebanon, Brazil and Mexico.

I currently live and work in New York City with my family. At my SoHo studio, I work on canvases of all sizes, mostly with oil, but I am expanding into other mediums as well.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I am continuously unlearning is that one can be a successful artist without ever being an Artist with a capital “A.” Living in New York City, in SoHo no less, I am surrounded by ghosts of Artists, living and dead. Richard Serra, Donald Judd, and Nam June Paik lived on my street. The Tony Shafrazi Gallery used to be right next door to us. Before I came to New York from Paris, these are the bold face names I knew, and when I arrived, there they were in real life. To be an artist, one does not have to be an Artist. As a matter of fact, these are two completely different things, both with their pros and cons. Do you know what I mean?

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My main mission in my creative journey is to be true to myself. This may sound cliche, but it’s much easier said than done.

Being true to oneself in our current world where people construct curated selves on social media, including only the parts of themselves they want others to see and hiding the rest, is the presentation of a false self. But this is what we are all encouraged to do by example. In order to work, I must divorce myself from this paradigm.

Being true to myself means that I should never go against my true nature if I wish to succeed in my life and my work. This rule applies especially to my painting. If I ever try to emulate the style of another artist, the painting is doomed from the start. I always feel a stronger connection to paintings I create organically than those that have been commissioned. It is absolutely impossible for me to “cheat,” meaning rushing the work or not being fully focused while creating a piece. If I do not express my true feelings on the canvas, the results are mediocre at best. It is only by truly understanding and living by this value that I will be able to leave a proper trace in this world through my work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.arnaudpainter.com/
• Instagram: @arnaudpainter
• Facebook: @arnaudgibersztajn

Image Credits
Photos: Nick Mango Photography, Takashi Nakagawa, and Arnaud Gibersztajn