Draft:Gandalf Gavan

Gandalf Gavan
Gandalf Gavan (1975 – 2014) was a German-American artist known for his interdisciplinary work and installations encompassing painting, drawing, glass, neon, and mirrors. Gavan's diverse body of work was underpinned by his interest in material experimentation, collaboration, and an "attract[ion] to art that has that sense of humour and tension between seriousness, ambivalence and play."

Biography
Gandalf Gavan was born in 1975 in West Berlin, Germany. He was raised between Germany and New Mexico, USA. Gavan studied at the Repin Academy, St. Petersburg in Russia (1995-96) and the Santa Fe Art Institute (1997). He received his BFA from Bard College in 1998, studying under Judy Pfaff and William G. Tucker, and his MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University in 2005. He taught at Columbia University for several years as an adjunct professor in printmaking.

He was the recipient of various awards including the Joan Mitchell MFA Grant, the Mortimer-Frank Travel Fellowship at Columbia University, and a Nancy Graves Grant for Visual Artists. During his time at Columbia University he was a fellow at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies.

Based in Brooklyn, New York, Gavan also lived and worked extensively in Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Morocco and Germany. His work has been exhibited in a variety of venues such as MoMa PS1, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, the Museo Nacional De Arte in Mexico City, and the Cornell Museum of Fine Arts.

Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions Selected Group exhibitions