Selected Works

At Winchester Galleries 796 Humboldt Street

August 14 - 31, 2010

Opening: Saturday, August 14, 2010
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

George Gordienko was an artist and wrestler. Weighing about 260 pounds of solid muscle in his prime, he could, at the same time, create the most delicate and mysterious Surrealist paintings.  How this Canadian wrestler became such a gentle and whimsical artist and person is a life-long adventure worthy of a creation by Ernest Hemingway.

Born in 1928 of Russian and Ukranian parents in Winnipeg, by age 17 Gordienko had received numerous awards for his physical prowess. However, recognizing his adolescent penchant for art, his father gave him his first oil paints and brushes at age 12.  From then on, art always came before wrestling, even at the height of his fame in that sport.  While wrestling professionally in Canada, the United States and Europe, he attended art schools in Winnipeg, San Francisco, London and Paris.  Between matches, he visited the world's great museums, from North America to Europe to Japan, the Middle East and South America.  His life was divided between the studio, the ring and museums.

When Gordienko retired from wrestling in 1976 he settled in northern Italy with the beautiful Marchesa Christina Tassou, a member of the Greek aristocracy with whom he had fallen in love when they met in Athens 10 years earlier.  With her devoted and practical support he painted full-time.  Through her encouragement his art participated in many solo and group exhibitions in Italy, Paris and London.  He exhibited alongside Pablo Picasso, Juan Miro, Henry Moore, Max Ernst, Hans Hartung and other European modernists, several of whom he knew personally.  During these years, he developed a style of art that reflected influence from the poetic, biomorphic Surrealism of Miro, coupled with the late Synthetic Cubism of Picasso and Juan Gris.

Gordienko lived with his Marchesa until 1990.  That year he returned to Canada to establish his final home and studio for himself alone in Black Creek, on Vancouver Island.  He continued to draw and paint there until his death in 2002.

Brian Grison, 2006