Dan GoorevitchPhotographs: Kensington Market

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About Me

Dan Goorevitch

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Mom, Dad, my twin brother and me, 1951

I decided to become an artist at the age of six. Dad took us down to the river bank where he skipped stones nearly all the way across. He pointed out animal tracks in the wet bank and I tried to imitate them by writing my name with a stick.

I wondered if my name would still be there next Sunday. Looking up at the smooth sand my heart sank. As it is human nature to look up when feeling down, so I did. What I saw made my heart leap for joy. Some crazy bugger climbed 30 feet up and painted a yellow and red X on the bridge’s buttress. “That will last,” I said. "That's what I'll do."

I forgot about that though, since my father died the next year and my mother became ill. My mentor, Ron Stonier, used to say that an artist was made by an idyllic childhood suddenly cut short, forcing the he child to withdraw, there to create a vision of a better world which, when he discovers his medium, he brings out into the world.

And so it was. On a perfect summer day I remember thinking “there must be more to life than perfection” and stumbled into the dark basement where my hand, magically it seemed, magnetically attracted paint to it, a piece of paper, a jar for water and, moving the muddy paint around (it was black and white) I suddenly saw an image of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. That, I knew, was my door to bring everything inside me out into the world.

I have been painting ever since: almost 40 years.

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