About Gregory Arth
Gregory Arth, born in Albuquerque New Mexico and raised in Texas, is an artist of extraordinary diversity. Arth showed an interest in and a talent for drawing from an early age. His work includes contemporary, traditional, classic, old world, sculpture, and kinetic pieces displayed in galleries, corporate offices, and private homes around the country and England. His acclaimed circuit board art pieces hang in private homes and have been seen on college textbook covers, digital advertising , promotional posters, and other print media. His commercial murals and paintings are seen nationally and internationally in the Cinemark Theater chain. He is also know for his trompe l’oeil, painted murals and faux fresco murals work on the walls, ceilings and domes of some of the finest homes in Texas and beyond.
Beginning in high school Arth acted and helped design and paint backdrops and set pieces for his high school theater productions including a brief collaboration with the theater department at the American School in London where he created an interactive set piece for the musical, Annie Get Your Gun. Arth continued to paint in a wide range of styles since his college days at the University of Texas Arlington, where he studied art and theater, painted backdrops, and designed sets while painting murals and selling paintings. This early training lead him to create projects, and backdrops for the Dallas and Houston ballet and opera companies as well as the Six Flags Companies in their Southern Palace and Crazy Horse saloon theater productions.
Arth spent years creating murals on the walls and ceilings of many private homes and businesses. This work was predominately old world or traditional in nature but included more contemporary work also. Home theaters murals were popular and the work in these areas created the feeling of being in the city at night, or in exotic foreign locations or among Italian ruins.
Arth’s decorative artwork in the private home of the owners of the Cinemark theater chain, lead to contracts to execute murals on location and on canvass in their theaters around the country as well as the home offices in Dallas. Some of these murals have been reproduced for display in their theaters in South America and Asia. Two of these projects included numerous murals in the Cinemark theater in the historic Plaza area in Kansas City, Kansas and large out door Art Deco style murals in Orlando Florida.
At one point Arth was featured in a Neiman Marcus catalog for his ability to paint the bottom of swimming pools to look like underwater scenes. This work with epoxy paint was tricky and smelly and the process was difficult and unpleasant. These experiences lead directly to the successful “Paint it Again, Sam” series where he uses epoxy paint to affix brushes to panels in a keyboard arrangement.
Arth works in several styles, one of which he calls “Sculptural Cubism”. It is a mishmash of traditional cubism and a sort of 2- dimensional sculpture like painting. He used this style to create portraits, the faces of icons, and different breeds of dogs and cats.
One of the most popular and long lived series is the work he creates using circuit boards, found objects, tech equipment, collage and paint. This series began in 1989 when he was looking at a circuit board and thought it looked like an aerial view of a city. This lead to the first piece that was called Over Saturation and was a representation of New York City. Some of these pieces were mounted to Plexiglas and lit up from behind. Cityscapes remain a popular subject for this style along with robots, flags, the Earth, and pieces I call Trees of Knowledge.
Arth has shown in galleries in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, New Orleans, Memphis, Los Angeles, and others and is represented by the Park West Galleries that sell his reproductions on cruise ships.
Though Arth’s approach to his work is challenging to those who want to label his style, this is how he has found the interest to paint and create daily for more that 40 years.
“I find creativity to be as essential as light and love, and will always seek out the creative muse in search of the next inspiration.”
His studio in Colleyville Texas is set among more than 100+ year old oak trees that became the inspiration for his acclaimed trees series. These atmospheric paintings reveal a Gustav Klimt’s influence and are more decorative in nature. Some of these works contain a classical music collage underlay, creating texture and visual interest as well as a suggestion that music permeates everything in life.
