The incredible world of Mr. Imagination is “a work of art in progress.”  Saying this sums up the life of Gregory Warmack who has been in the act of creating art ever since he was a young boy growing up on the South side of Chicago in a large family of brothers and sisters.  His mother was probably his first creative role model, and from there his energies have always focused on transforming his environment into a work of art.  Warmack’s talent is such that when handed an object of any size or shape, he sees into the object things that ordinary people don’t and can’t see.  This extraordinary gift manifests itself into the ability to change any lost or thrown away pieces of common material into a transcendent object by which new life, vitality, and meaning have been reincarnated.

Watching Mr. Imagination work is to experience the purest form of the intuitive process.  He begins only with the rawest notion of his final objective.  His hands work as his eyes.  They feel each object knowingly and through the tactile senses he learns what it is about the material he needs to know to make it bend, reflect, and act in concert with the other accumulated artifacts.  As the piece of sculpture takes shape, it becomes clear that the process has been organic, flowing, natural, evolving with unique unpredictability.  The act becomes the ritualistic performance of the shaman.  Similarly, magically, new life emerges.

Perhaps the most significant element intrinsic to the Greg Warmack creation process, is his belief in the spiritual energies possessed by his pieces which are infused both in the creation process and by the collaborative contributions of the spirit of people both living and dead.  As the numerous labor-intensively placed pieces of objects, rubble, and memorabilia accumulate, so does the collective human spirit which simultaneously embellishes and cements the sum total of life experience that it embodies.

Selected Exhibitions

(art)n Virtual Visions, Brunnier Art Museum, Iowa State University, October 29, 2002 - January 5, 2003

References

Warren, Lynne (1996). Art in Chicago: 1945-1995. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois.

Gallery Representation

Carl Hammer Gallery