(1947 - 1998)
Earl Biss was raised by his grandmother at Crow Agency, Montana and at Yakima, Washington. Biss began exploring art as a child after developing rheumatic arthritis. At age 16, he studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Sante Fe as a student of Fritz Scholder, a well known Native American artist who used abstract expressionistic paintings while deconstructing Native stigmas. Biss received a scholarship that enabled him to attend the San Francisco Art Institute for a more in depth study of oil painting.
Earl Biss's paintings embody the energy found within nature. The act of moving paint on a canvas was as inspiring to him as the knowledge and passion of the concepts within his paintings. While abstract expressionism was gaining momentum in NYC and Europe, only the color and movement remained relevant to Biss and not the concepts, or lack there-of, behind their work. Regardless, his still considered the Fauvs, Turner, and Munch as influential in his work.
“My paintings might suggest a harmony of man and nature, a combining of rigid line and free flowing spontaneity, bubbling with rich color with the disciplined design of the hard edge technique. I am not concerned with capturing the outward image of nature, but rather those powers or forces of nature which play such an important part or basis for the way things are. A concept of reality drawn from spontaneous abstractions, and controlled with the subtlety I wield as the creator.” —Earl Biss, 1995
