Paul Guy Gantner

Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1948, Gantner was attracted to color and form at the age of 12, when he began recreating his universe through the medium of paint.

Primarily a self-taught, his passion for the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists was responsible for his move to France, where he studied their work. The majority of Gantner's paintings are set in Provence.

The artist's fascination with quaint mountain villages and their narrow, winding streets became a perfect vehicle for the true subject of his work's solitude.

Gantner's paintings are visual records of absence. This theme is reinforced through the
artist's use of confined luminous and shadowed spaces that are defined and contained by vertical walls or paths of stone.

Even when the painting is not of a narrow village street, solitude and absence are still present. Trained in the impressionist vein, Gantner has resolved the age-old Poussiniste-Rubeniste conflict by combining the strengths and qualities of line with color.
 
The spontaneous quality that defined the impressionism of Monet has given way to a painted drawing that is a controlled application of color structured within a strong linear composition.