Bio

A Virginia native, Giles moved to northern Maine after earning his BFA from The College of William and Mary and a MFA from East Carolina University during the 1970's. In 2014, Professor Giles retired after 35 years of teaching art and photography. This summer was his last time creating full-time in Maine before moving west to the Grand Teton mountains where he will continue to paint in a new studio.

"My recent paintings deal with many diverse inspirations whose essence is then synthesized into visual statements. The images are meant to be personal yet maintain a sense of the universal. In addition to external influences, I am also interested in exploring the inner arena of consciousness, where the experiences of life lie stored, ready to be re-understood, re-combined, and re-synthesized into new interpretations and visual images. The images bring forth visual commentary on the known as well as the unknown realms of my existence. They touch on both the bewildering complexity and also the beautiful simplicity of life’s journey.
The formal visual elements in my work originate from landscape/nature cycles, dream images, musical rhythms, history, myth, travel, important personal and family events, etc. The works suggest sensations of life, death, decay, rebirth, creation, destruction, the prehistoric, the mythic and the passage of time." -Anderson Giles