Gordon Sizelove

Gordon Sizelove

American, b. 1953 Follow Gordon Sizelove (American, b. 1953) is a San Francisco–based painter whose geometric forms and vivid chromatic fields explore universal themes of perception, movement, and connection. Working in acrylics, pastels, charcoal, and pencil, he constructs enigmatic interlocking patterns - shapes that seem to shift between biomorphic organisms viewed through a microscope, the mottled textures of a forest floor, or objects drifting through deep space. Influenced by contemporary developments in art, architecture, and science, Sizelove’s visual language is distinctly his own. Born in Boston and raised across Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts, Sizelove began painting early and studied at both cities’ art museums. In 1972 he moved to the West Coast to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, where he immersed himself in a thriving cultural scene. There he studied with second-generation American abstractionists and artists associated with the emerging Funk Art movement, including Sam Tchakalian, Julius Hatofsky, Tom Holland, and Robert Hudson.

He also met his future wife, Barbara Johnson, in a course taught by Robert Colescott, whose transgressive, incisive paintings about race made a lasting impression.

After earning his MFA in Painting in 1979 and exhibiting widely, Sizelove completed a teaching credential in Art Education at San Francisco State University. He spent decades teaching art in the San Francisco Unified School District, later shifting his focus to working with students with learning disabilities while pursuing additional studies in perception and behavior. Since retiring in 2014, he has returned to painting full time, continuing to evolve his practice through ongoing engagement with developments in science, philosophy, psychology, and contemporary art.

RECENT EXHIBITIONS

2025


  • Ingleside Gallery at the Ballast Café, San Francisco, CA

    February - March 2025

  • Canessa Building Gallery

    Group Show, curated by Thomasina DeMaio

    January 2025

  • Art Works Downtown

    Group Show

    San Rafael, CA

    December 2025

2024


  • Kings Galleries at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco

    With Barbara Sizelove

    November - December 2024

  • San Francisco Open Studios

    In-studio exhibition and Brannan Street Gallery

    October 2024

  • The Spring Group Exhibition

    Live Worms Gallery

    San Francisco, CA

    April 27 - May 18, 2024

  • A Gathering of Color

    Falkirk Cultural Center, San Rafael, CA

    Juror: Ta Vee Lee

    January 12 - February 16, 2024

  • Circles, Squares, and Triangles

    Exhibizone (online exhibition)

    January 5 - March 5, 2024

  • Small Works Exhibit

    Art Works Downtown

    San Rafael, CA

    Juror: Eleanor Harwood

    November 18, 2023 - January 20, 2024

  • Cornucopia

    Art Works Downtown Members’ Exhibition

    San Rafael, CA

    November 24, 2023 - January 20, 2024

2023


  • Reveries on the Universal

    Donor’s Gallery, Art Works Downtown

    San Rafael, CA

    October 5 - November 10, 2023

  • San Francisco Open Studios

    721 Tehama Street, San Francisco, CA

    November 11 - 12, 2023

  • Live Worms Gallery

    Group Show

    San Francisco, CA

    June 30 - July 8, 2023

  • Completely Color: Color and Human Experience

    Inter-Society Color Council

    Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY

    Jurors: Mark Fairchild and Danielle Siembieda

    June 12 - July 14, 2023

  • Abstract is Abstract

    HMVC Gallery NYC (online)

    May 1 - May 31, 2023

  • ArtSpan Juried Benefit Art Auction

    111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco, CA

    March 30 - April 15, 2023

  • Creative Revel

    Live Worms Gallery

    San Francisco, CA

    November 17, 2022 - January 8, 2023

  • Small Works Exhibit

    Art Works Downtown

    San Rafael, CA

    Juror: Emebet B. Korn

    November 19, 2022 - January 21, 2023

2022


  • SFOS Exhibition

    ArtSpan, 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA

    October 22 - November 13, 2022

  • Colors

    Marin Society of Artists, San Rafael, CA

    Group Show

    Juror: Karen Leoni

    October 28 - November 19, 2022

  • San Francisco Open Studios

    721 Tehama Street, San Francisco, CA

    November 5 - 6, 2022

  • The Spring Show

    Live Worms Gallery

    San Francisco, CA

    May 19 - June 12, 2022

  • Yes Art!

    ArtSpan Benefit Art Auction

    April 18 - April 28, 2022

    Jurors: Marcy Coburn, Lena Conley, Donna Camille Davis, John James Hartford V, Don Ross

2021


  • Mission Bowling Club

    ArtSpan’s Art-in-Neighborhoods Program

    San Francisco, CA

    November 30, 2021 - March 1, 2022

  • Pure Paint

    Arts Benicia, Benicia, CA

    Juror: Nicholas Wilton

    November 13 - December 19, 2021

  • SFOS Showcase Exhibition

    SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA

    October 22 - November 21, 2021

  • San Francisco Open Studios

    721 Tehama Street, San Francisco, CA

    October 16 - 17, 2021

  • One Year Anniversary Show

    Live Worms Gallery

    August 27 - September 12, 2021

  • Arts in the Neighborhoods

    ArtSpan at Cumaica Coffee House, San Francisco, CA

    June 9 - August 25, 2021

  • 7th Annual Juried Show

    Piedmont Center for the Arts, Piedmont, CA

    April 16 - May 16, 2021

    Jurors: René de Guzman and Danielle Fox

  • The Pleasure of Color

    Art Works Downtown

    Curated by Susan Press

    March 5 - April 11, 2021

  • The February Group Show

    Live Worms Gallery

    January 29 - February 21, 2021

2020


  • The Creative Revel

    Live Worms Gallery

    December 18, 2020 - January 10, 2021

  • Art in the Neighborhoods

    The Mosser Hotel, San Francisco, CA

    March 5 - December 18, 2020

    (Closed temporarily during pandemic beginning March 16, 2020)

  • San Francisco Open Studios (Virtual)

    October 2020

AWARDS


  • Award for Campaign Collateral Competition

    San Francisco Open Studios / ArtSpan

    2022
I present a painting as an object, a thing in itself, not a representation. The painting is the place and the time is the present. My painting invites self-reflection, yet taps into the poetry and spirit of existence.
— Gordon Sizelove
Artist
I present a painting as an object, a thing in itself, not a representation. The painting is the place and the time is the present. My painting invites self-reflection, yet taps into the poetry and spirit of existence.
— Gordon Sizelove
Artist

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{

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Rita Matos (b. 1988) is a Portuguese-born, London-based mixed media artist whose intuitive, layered abstractions explore memory, presence, and transformation through expressive mark-making and evolving surface compositions....

{

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Landscape, Abstract, Figurative
Chilean

Javiera da Fonseca Ilić (b. 1982, Santiago de Chile) is a Chilean-born, Mexico-based abstract artist whose work explores the interplay of memory, dreams, and energy through material experimentation and investigations of the connection between inner and natural worlds...

{

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Abstract Figurative Painter
Moldovan

Kate Vorona (Moldovan, b. 1993) is a contemporary abstract-figurative painter whose expressive, color-driven works explore the emotional inner worlds of her figures through movement, atmosphere, and dynamic spatial tension....

{

Cedric VU

Textile Artist
French-Vietnamese

Cedric Vu (b. 1996) is a French-Vietnamese contemporary visual artist born and raised in San Jose, California. From 2014 to 2023, he lived in Los Angeles, where he studied filmmaking, worked as a dancer, and held a range of production roles in film and...

{

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Mixed Media Artist
French-American

Christiane Corcelle is a French-American mixed media artist based in Massachusetts. Her intuitive, layered practice spans painting, printmaking, collage, and de-collage, building richly textured surfaces that invite close exploration. Guided by curiosity and...

{

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Luz Marina Ruiz is an CA-based multidisciplinary artist whose work, inspired by nature and dreams, uses layered printmaking techniques to create luminous, tactile imagery often centered on water and boats as metaphors for life’s journeys...

{

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