STUDIO #8 #11
Gummi Thordarson
Gummi Thordarson was born in Iceland. He studied Biology at the University of Iceland and after obtaining his bachelor’s degree there, he left for England to pursue a Ph.D. Degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Reading. After graduation, he was offered a Postdoctoral position at the University of California, Santa Cruz and after his Postdoctoral training; he stayed on as a Research Scientist there for several years. Gummi moved to El Paso, Texas sixteen years ago for a Professorship in Biomedical Sciences at Texas Tech University, and then transferred to UTEP when he was offered a Faculty Position there in the Biology Department. He has now left the field of Biology and devotes all his time to his art. Although Gummi is trained as a scientist and has been teaching and carrying out research in the Biological Sciences for a long time, he has been interested in art all his life and has used every opportunity to educate himself about art and practice his art whenever he has found the time. Gummi has mostly been involved with painting, using both oil and watercolors, but he has also tried his hands on sculpting and for the last three year, he has devoted much time on learning the art of printmaking. He feels that his scientific background has helped him in developing his art because the fields of arts and sciences are much related. One must seek to understand as completely as possible the essence of the subject and only when that is achieved can one begin to tackle the problems at hand, be it biological or art. And although the tools and techniques used in the two disciplines may be quite different, the approach to solve the problems is the same. Gummi has showed his work at the Agave Rosa Gallery, El Paso and he has participated in numerous exhibitions at the El Paso Art Association, Crossland Gallery and The Golden Eagle Gallery, San Elizario. He has also participated in exhibitions at the Rock House Café and Gallery, El Paso. Lately, Gummi has participated in quite a few print exchanges both in the US and abroad.
