60 Shades of Burton Gray – post-abstract surrealist painter
Burton Gray in his studio, located in The Brewery Complex, north of downtown Los Angeles. Photo by Gloria Plascencia You’ve taken your four-year-old son to church or to choir practice and you want him to sit still and somehow not be bored, so what do you do? Burton Gray’s mother handed him a pencil and a pad of paper. He was still too young to write his memoirs, but old enough to start drawing. In the quarter of a century since then, Burton Gray has gone from low-tech to high-tech, but he’s never ceased making art. Growing up in Rolling Hills, Gray was an only child whose parents didn’t want him watching TV or playing video games, and that seems to have been fine by him: “I’m one of those kids that didn’t want friends to call and bother him on weekends because I just wanted to draw.” It didn’t occur to him until later that this was a little unusual. Doesn’t every boy want lots of playmates? Somewhere between kindergarten and first grade Gray was given informal art lessons by a neighbor who was himself taking art classes, and who gladly shared whatever techniques he was learning. George Gunza and his wife often babysat Gray while the lad’s parents were at work. Also, Gray recalls…
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