Aaron Gilbert

Aaron J. Gilbert (born 1979), also known as "AJ", is an American visual artist. He is known for creating symbolically and psychologically charged narrative paintings. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Biography Gilbert was born in 1979 in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He is of Cuban descent. In 2008, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University in Painting. Lawson and Gilbert's work is mutually influential, and much of Gilbert's artwork depicts Lawson and their children. His paintings feature a bright and moody palette, and staged but self-aware subjects.

In 2010, Gilbert was awarded the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for Painting. He is a 2015 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award recipient, and has been awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters as the 2010 “Young American Painter of Distinction.” His work is currently in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Residencies include a 2013 Fountainhead Residency, a 2012 Yaddo residency, a 2008 LMCC Workspace Residency as well as the 2008 Affiliate Fellowship of the American Academy in Rome.

He has exhibited his work at PPOW New York (2021), among others. In the fall of 2020, he had a two-person show with Martin Wong at PPOW New York which was reviewed in The New York Times and Art in America.

Exhibitions

2008 – Conceptual Figures, Deitch Projects, New York City, New York 2008–2009 – The New Akademiks, Galerie Schuster, Berlin, Germany 2009 – The Open, Deitch Studios Long Island City, Long Island City, New York 2012 – Lessico Famigliare (Family Talk), FUTURA Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic 2013 – Exposure, Spinello Projects, EXPO Chicago, Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois 2013 – Bent In, Primetime Gallery, Brooklyn, New York 2014 – Selfies & Friends: Contemporary Portraiture, Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, Rhode Island 2014 – Aaron Gilbert: Possessed, Mottahedan Projects, Dubai, UAE 2016 – "BRIC Biennial: Volume 2 – Bed Stuy/Crown Heights Edition", BRIC, Brooklyn, New York 2019 – Solo Booth with Lulu, Mexico City, NADA, Miami 2019 – Psychic Novellas, Lyles & King, New York City, New York 2021 – 1981–2001, Martin Wong / Aaron Gilbert, P·P·O·W. Gallery, New York