Gregory is taking a historical practice, like Cubism and blending it with iconic personalities that have shaped popular music and film culture. Cubism is unassuming. Look at an image created with Cubism and you can see the cubes. Only straight lines are involved to create the image. This technique dates back to the early 1900's when Picasso and Braque jointly invented Cubism.

Math Creating The Art

Cubism is rooted in the math of geometry. Let us review a little math, shall we. A space figure or three-dimensional figure is a figure that has depth in addition to width and height. A space figure having all flat faces is called a polyhedron. Cubes and pyramids are both space figures and polyhedrons. A cube is a three-dimensional figure having six matching square sides.

Now that the math refresher is over, let’s touch on the three broad types of Cubism which are analytical, synthetic and cubist sculpture. Analytical Cubism is a strict form of avant-garde art where an image is separated into various monochromic cube sizes and then reassembled creating an image. Synthetic Cubism uses everyday found objects like magazine clippings, movie tickets, photographs, receipts, etc to create not only cubes but new shapes that make an image. It is similar to a collage. Until this point art was made by using brushes and paint and for first time items like glue and scissors were considered art tools. This was revolutionary. Finally Cubist Sculpture is the marriage of similar shapes, cubes and pyramids, and the material used to create sculpture like bronze.

In the conversation, Gregory Arth explains how his study of Cubism influences his art.

Introduction to Gregory Arth

Renata What is your name?
Gregory Gregory Arth Renata We are at the Cottonwood Arts Festival here in Dallas, TX and tell is a little about your art
Gregory I paint. I typically paint in oil. Renata OK
Gregory I prefer oil over acrylic. Occasionally I do some acrylic under painting. Renata Why do you prefer oil over acrylic?
Gregory They tell ya’ll its not … it’s not true. But it has a richness to it (oil) that I like. And I like the dry time. It gives you more options to extend out and blend better and stuff like that. And the oil glazes that I use give a richness to it that I don’t think – it’s not the same as acrylic.
Renata Ok. How long have you been painting?
Gregory Since, I was a child, very young. I have old pictures from first grade of drawings I did that aren’t too bad actually.
Curtiss Right, right
Renata Ok
Gregory I’ve been a freelancer about 30 years now as a freelance artist.