Ginnie Gardiner is a New York artist who has shown in numerous solo and group exhibits for over 40 years. She graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1974. From 1978 to 2005 she lived and worked in a loft in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City with her husband, Jon Phillips (b.1952-d.2020). In 2005 they relocated to upstate New York, after purchasing a Federal era building located in the Village of Catskill, where Ginnie has her home and studio.

"This move upstate opened Gardiner up to a new environment in the sun-and color-drenched works of the Figure/Ground and Color Prophecies series, where she played with portraiture and landscape within rigorously composed, decidedly non-realistic pictorial spaces.

The natural sunlight that was such a palpable presence in Gardiner's initial paintings following the move to Catskill played an important part in the development of the Interspace series. The warm western light at the front of her studio is perfect for studying the shadows created in her three-dimensional setups, shadows that are key elements in the Interspace paintings. Once the studies satisfy her (provisionally), she photographs them, also in direct sunlight. The photo is crucial to translating these three-dimensional objects into two-dimensional paintings. Gardiner uses Photoshop to refine the layout, adjusting colors, straightening out edges, stretching or cropping the picture frame, eliminating any elements that don’t contribute to the work’s overall thrust. While it’s commonplace now for artists to employ digital technology as they compose and refine their work, Gardiner has been doing it for decades; she’s been comfortable with multimedia techniques since her work back in the 1980s for a commercial production company. While she is painting a canvas, she moves the easel (it’s on wheels) to catch the precise light she needs, adjusting the easel’s position as the light changes throughout the day. 

In each phase of her career, Gardiner has excavated new territories and applied new techniques while never losing sight of her lifelong goal: to employ the intrinsic qualities of paint to their fullest extent as she captures the infinite varieties of color and light that give her joy."

- Excerpt from essay by Wendy Smith in Gardiner's new book: Ginnie Gardiner: Change and Continuity
Click on the link below to view the interview and video 'In the Studio with Trailblazing Artist Ginnie Gardiner', featured in Inside and Out Upstate New York':