Garrett Middaugh

Garrett Middaugh is a native Texas artist who obtained his MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. He has been painting professionally for some 40 years, beginning in the mid 1980s in post-modern narrative figuration primarily influenced by surrealist philosophy. He first showed with the Patrick Gallery (now closed) in Austin, and his work garnered attention at the time when he won Juror's Choice and Best of Show awards in local and statewide exhibitions. In 1990 he changed directions, however, realizing a preference for pure realism, focusing on landscape. In the early '90s he began showing at the Harris gallery in Houston, where he remained until its closing in 2016. Working in oils, acrylics and pastels, he painted Texas landscapes in a photo/hyper realist style, most often depicting its forests and flora. His paintings in this vein can be found in many corporate and private collections throughout the state and nationally. He achieved some recognition as a pastelist, winning several awards in pastel competitions, including Best of Show in the Pastel Society of America's annual exhibition in New York City in 2004. In recent years he has returned to a more expressive style, utilizing surrealism/figuration/abstraction to generate narrative that, informed by the philosophy of Absurdism, is essentially meaningless. "I'm kind of embracing the philosophy, in my old age," Garrett states, " that life is meaningless, without purpose, and I'm exploring my imagination following this principle. I don't predetermine the course of a painting with sketches, etc., I may reference photos but I don't copy them, I make everything up as I go along. I look for ways to negate any 'meaning' or narrative that starts to develop, for ways to distort or deconstruct any reality that tries to infiltrate. I view the structures of reality and meaning as crutches that limit the imagination, although I still enjoy, every once in a while, the technical challenge of realist painting."