Gary Fisher
About
Gary Fisher is an artist, engineer and applied scientist. He has a broad multidisciplinary background in the arts and sciences and holds a Ph.D. in Engineering with department distinction from UCLA. While a postdoc, he researched holography and focused on holographic display technology which became the basis for his body of artistic and technical work in the field.
While at UCLA in addition to studying engineering, he studied art history and practiced painting, drawing and photography on a regular basis. He also studied drawing with multi-media artist Jan Stussy and painting with abstract expressionist Nathan Oliveira on non-credit bases.
While this site focuses on his artwork, on the technical side Gary holds a number of U.S. patents in holography, electrical and mechanical engineering, and fountain technology, and has been a technical consultant in these areas.
Holography
In the 1980s and 1990s Gary exhibited his art holography in museums in Los Angeles and Arizona. In 1984, he and Roberta Booth co-produced Interactions In Laser Light, the first holography exhibit at L.A.'s Museum of Science and Industry. He also showed several of his holograms in that exhibit. This exhibit was also shown at the museum during the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. In 1988-1990, he exhibited his art holography in Images in Time and Space, an international holography exhibition at its Los Angeles and Santa Monica venues.
He has consulted in holography for over forty years. He has completed holographic works for clients including Pratt-Whitney Aircraft and has built computer-controlled holographic machines and processing units for clients including Hughes Power Products and Northrup Aircraft.
Photography
Gary has practiced art photography for over fifty years. His early instruction in composition, large format photography, and darkroom technique was provided by his father, Randolph Fisher, a Bevery Hills portrait and commercial photographer who was an associate member of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.
In the mid-1980s, Gary exhibited his photography in the Mitzi Landau Gallery in West Los Angeles and other venues. Since the 1990s, he has exhibited his photographs in galleries in California on an occasional basis.
His practice includes stereo, aerial, and panoramic photography as well as 360-degree digital photography and videography. His current work centers on temporal studies of cloud and natural phenomena, landscape photography, and studies on the nature of reality and time.
Fountain Art
Gary has designed water fountains since 1993. His fountains and fountains of his design have been shown and sold in art galleries and commercial venues in the continental U.S. and Hawaii. Several of his fountains incorporate microcontrollers to create dynamic wave patterns on water surfaces. He has also developed fountains incorporating audio and visual effects as aids to meditation and to reduce the percepton of tinnitus.
Mixed-Media
From the 1970s to the present, Gary has completed mixed-media works many of which are conceptual in nature.
In the mid-1970's through the mid-1980's he investigated static and dynamic polarization which led to several mixed-media pieces incorporating birefringent materials.
He has an enduring interest in representing cloud phenomena. From the 1970s onward, he has created works combining cloud photography, wood and metal. Since 2013 his mixed-media work has focused on minimalist kinetic color works, fountains embodying audio trompe l'oeil, multimedia displays of poetry, and integration of electronic displays with painting and photography
Painting
Gary returned to painting in 2017 and since then has painted a number of abstract skyscapes in acrylic and aerosol media on canvas, curved aluminum sheets and curved acryllic sheets.
© 2017- 2024 Gary Fisher
Art Practice
"Landscape with Cloud", 50"x42", oil on canvas, 1967
photo credit
© Patricia Fennell, 2020