Dean Gazeley, studio visit with portrait painter in Mexico

In April 2014, I had the opportunity to meet one of our artists, Dean Gazeley in Guanajuato, Mexico. High up in the interior mountains, Guanajuato is a fascinating town built into a valley well surrounded by mountains. It was the financial center of the very rich silver region.

Originally from Comox, BC, Dean has lived in Mexico since 1999. He tried San Miguel de Allende but only stayed one night! He carried on to Guanajuato instead and never left. His 10 year old son used to come and sit at his own little desk in the studio and do art but is now spending more time kicking a soccer ball and playing violin, like his mother who plays oboe in local orchestra. Dean works in portraits and landscapes, in oils. His portraiture work keeps him busy and has most of the next year planned with them. He usually about 10 sittings of 3 hours each. Dean studied with Ted Seth Jacobs in France.

His house is just up from the Museo Iconografico del Quijote. He used to paint at home and was looking around for outside studio space when house next door came available. They bought it, renovated it, and it now gives him wonderful studio space at the front and Casa Caracol in the back, a charming 2 bedroom apartment to rent from VRBO.

He closes the door when working to keep distractions at bay, often has a model in by himself so he can change it up and arrange the session exactly to meet his own needs. We connected just a day too late to have gotten to sit in with his last small group session. He’s a very tall fellow with some nice tall studio easels with counterbalance weights in a nice tall space. The rolling easel trolley has entire top of glass with extra wooden box to take brushes, mediums, and bits to keep at working table height and access.

Thanks Dean for fitting us in between studio time and picking up your son from school! Dean also recommended La Taula restaurant where we had a delightful late lunch of pork ribs in Spanish style setting underneath his luscious landscape paintings.
Dean Gazeley
Published
2014/06/25

(May 2015, some corrections made, sorry for any previous mistakes in this post which were entirely my mistake and not correct quotes from Dean)