Gregory Hergert, born in 1952 in Corvallis, OR. At the age of 17, his family relocated to Madison, NJ where he studied and earned his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. After graduating, his career as an illustrator took him to Manhattan where the ability to illustrate stories on demand was forged based on the daily job deadlines he was under; a skill he still applies every day when making his art.
After the passing of his mother, he met his wife Robin and moved to Portland, OR, where he secured an art studio in the then un-gentrified part of the inner city. Being directly in the heart of the day to day workings of gritty urban city life, this became an inspiration that eventually over time, slowly began to creep into the art he created. From that body of work and the positive feedback he received, he began to focus more on the movement of life in the city surrounding him and over time he founded the Urban Surrealism Art Movement.
Currently, Gregory lives and works in the inner city of Portland, OR with his wife Robin and their cats. On most any given day, you will find him sitting in his art studio painting and drawing, where he finds inspiration in the day to day movements of the people and animals of the city that he sees below him as he looks out of his studio window and from the daily walks he takes throughout the city.
“A city bus, a car horn, a drip of sweat as a rat scurries across the floor, hunched over the painting, the city, the imagination is Urban Surrealism.” — Gregory Hergert
