Gay & Lesbian Artists
Garry Hamilton Fine Art
Disclaimer: Garry is not gay, but he has a lesbian sister (me), and a gay brother (my other brother George) and a lesbian daughter (my niece Tamara), and at least two cousins who are lesbian, and because his art is AWESOME I have taken the liberty of adding his website to this collection.
Painting is my passion. From my first crayon in kindergarten I was hooked. I have been drawing and painting ever since.
I love to paint plein-air – that is to say on location; with the sun playing over the scene (or not), the smell and feel of nature all around. Just me, my easel, paint, paper and the scene lying before me. For painting outdoors I find the most portable medium and the best for transparency and immediacy is watercolor. Sometimes on location I’ll take a digital camera shot and later upload the image to a TV in my studio. Using recall I try to re-capture the event with paint.
Also in my studio I like to paint from live models. I may use pastels, charcoal, acrylics or watercolor. It depends on my mood – what I want to say and the time constraints.
Artist’s Statement
My inspiration is light and its corollary, shade.
- how light reveals form, creates pattern, establishes mood
- how it diffuses, bleaches, and reveals the subtleties of colour
- and in colour, the play of harmonious colours, the drama of opposite colours
- the vibration between warm and cool colours
These are the elements that provide inspiration when I plunge into a painting.
Lorraine Inzalaco
is an artist whose work portrays women loving women. She earned a Studio Arts degree at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, a BFA from the University of Cincinnati, and an MFA at Queens College.
When painting from models, Lorraine builds a vignette with props, and then the models step into the scene. The women in her paintings are sometimes loved ones, sometimes professional models, as well as women she has imagined. Many of her paintings are life-size in scale. “I’m comfortable painting large,” she explains. “It’s about body rhythm as you move across the canvas.” She has on occasion constructed life-sized soft-sculpture women and used them in place of models “because they can do things models can’t (like hold a kiss for three days).”
Lorraine says, “As a Lesbian and an artist, I have been recording the wonderful gifts of my life as far back as I can recall.” Making art as a celebration of my love for women, and my being loved by women is natural subject matter for me.” Her passion for creating began early, “I remember in kindergarten when I would draw.” she said. “The beautiful teacher would suggest we lie on the floor with a very large sheet of paper and Crayola crayons, and she would begin the classical music on an old record player. The rich combination of music, my innocent and pure love for her, and the permission to express myself visually and colorfully, set the conditions for my studio life for years to come.” Lorraine considers her subject matter of women loving women to be not only a simple and direct telling of her own life story, but an attempt to contribute to the women’s movement and others who are finding a voice in the world. “My subject matter is not intentionally political, however I want my work to be visible. I believe I am being political by being present.”
Scott Andrew Spencer
is a gay Christian California native, born in 1970 in Santa Monica and raised in Orange County. Currently residing in Los Angeles, he paints daily out on the balcony of his second-story condominium where he loves to listen to music and delve into abstraction. He takes inspiration from his immediate surroundings, real or imaginged, and paints into the wee hours of the night. “That’s when the energy comes.” Scott is primarily self taught and began painting full time after a brush with cancer in 1999. He was admitted into the Pasadena Society of Artists in 2004.