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Mixed media collage on canvas 39 × 39.5 × 1″ 2024 $1,500
Title after the Greek myth in which Zeus, king of the immortals, transformed himself into a swan to woo the mortal Leda. Their union produced Helen of Troy — known as the most beautiful woman in the world.
About the work
This nearly square canvas is the thematic centerpiece of the Modern Myth Making exhibition and the work that gives GJ Gillespie's art supply company its name. Leda Art Supply — founded in 2016 and now approaching $1 million in annual sales — takes its name from the same mythological queen, making this painting a rare instance where an artist's commercial and creative lives converge in a single image.
The work draws on Gillespie's Ancient Echoes series, in which figures from Greek and Roman mythology are reimagined through the layered language of mixed-media collage — found papers, grocery advertisements, tissue, acrylic, and graphite built up into surfaces that feel simultaneously ancient and contemporary. The nearly square format gives the composition an iconic, ceremonial quality, as if the scene has been lifted from a temple frieze and reassembled from the debris of modern life.
The myth of Leda has fascinated artists for millennia — from Leonardo da Vinci to Yeats — because it sits at the intersection of the divine and the mortal, the violent and the beautiful, the legendary and the intimate. Gillespie's version neither illustrates nor romanticizes. It builds the myth from the ground up, layer by layer, the way memory works.
Publication
- Burningwood Literary Journal, detail image, October 2024
Exhibition
- Modern Myth Making, City of Burien Gallery Program at Merrill Gardens, June 5 – September 24, 2026
To purchase Contact GJ Gillespie at garjog@gmail.com
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| GJ Gillespie Artist |
Artist Statement
My work exists outside of time. Ancient Greek heroes emerge from supermarket circulars and consumer ephemera. Egyptian pharaohs are built from crossword puzzles. Mid-century abstract figures dissolve into Pacific Northwest landscapes layered with colored tissue and found paper.
Working in mixed-media collage from a 1928 Tudor Revival farmhouse on Whidbey Island, I stand on the shoulders of giants — riffing on cultural icons from Greek mythology, Pompeii frescoes, and the mid-century masters who transformed what painting could express: Arshile Gorky, the Northwest Mystics Morris Graves, Mark Tobey, and Kenneth Callahan.
Titles of each piece are drawn from rock and pop music, connecting ancient imagery with modern soundtracks.
While the themes may seem lofty, viewers will sense a playfulness in the work. Pompeii frescoes meet grocery ads. Ancient Greek busts emerge from fast food wrappers. When it comes to making art I follow the philosophy of Thoreau: the world is but a canvas to our imagination.
Biography
GJ Gillespie (b. 1955) lives and works in a 1928 Tudor Revival farmhouse on Whidbey Island, WA. His mixed-media collage practice draws on the Northwest Mystics, mid-century abstract expressionism, Greek and Roman mythology, and song titles from rock and pop music. He has completed six residencies at the UW Whiteley Center, Friday Harbor Labs. In addition to winning 19 awards, his work has appeared in 77 exhibitions and 214 journal publications.
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| GJ Gillespie Studio |
Gillespie Home overlooking Oak Harbor
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