Today we’d like to introduce you to Anthony Gansauer.
Hi Anthony, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Greenville, SC in 2001. I grew up with my Father in Spartanburg, SC surrounded by all forms of art. I original became obsessed with creating music from my adolescence until 2023, heavily inspired from my dads use of jazz in our home. I lost a lot of my love for creating music and found expression through photography and visual arts as something I could gather all that energy into. I am now working as a propane gas mechanic on weekdays and shoot, develop, and darkroom print my photos with my enlarger in my bedroom on weekends.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Most of my artistic journey I struggled heavily with uncontrollable obsession with creating and expression. Constantly thinking how I can express myself better, how I can create a body of work that people could see themselves in and find something new within, creating the ideal complete magnum opus. At certain times it felt as a sickness to want to transfigure abstract emotions and thoughts into visual or musician ideas. Nothing ever feels like its enough, I can hit certain milestones in my work that would make the me from 6 months go “WOW”, but the present never feels adequate. It can seem like a type of “imposter syndrome,” or I’m just hard on myself but expression, creating, sharing and connecting is apart of my being and this aching chose to communicate within art.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a photographer. All my work is shot on 6×7 film and printed in the darkroom. I find this process gets me closer to the images in my head, which usually lends itself to paintings more than photographs. Film and the darkroom process gives the most organic color and tone possible within the photographic medium in my opinion, though the process is extremely slow and meticulous, I find it matches the integrity I want my work to have. 19th century paintings and 20th century cinema are the biggest inspirations in my work, artist like Edgar Degas, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Andrew Wyeth, Andrei Tarkosvky, Rodger Deakins, Christopher Doyle, and Sven Nykvist developed a huge imprint on my visual language, that I still haven’t even come close to getting onto a photo or print. What sets me apart from others is the aching within me to create, if I was in a desert with nothing, I’d doodle in the dirt before looking for water or people. My skill and ability does not match my determination and imagination, and hopefully it forever will. My work could be rubbish but there is something in knowing I cared and tried.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up I was very strict in what I wanted, even as a baby I was pretty much a brat. Hopefully I am not as childish and aggressive but nothing really has changed. Whatever I imagine in my head is exactly what I want and what I will get, my determination and ideas have never matched my skill. I would never call myself talented in really anything, I would study, learn, try and fail, fail and fail more until something resembled an idea I liked. I can fully say nobody taught me how to do anything really, I self taught myself everthing. My visual childhood memories are a lot of abstract paintings my dad created and salavdora dali books and prints, the sound of my childhood was Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Tom Waits, and Howlin’ Wolf. I feel as my upbringing gave me no choice but to attach myself to artistic expression.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.anthonygansauer.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anthonygansauer/
