A native Californian, Gary Fishman was raised in the San Fernando Valley where he enjoyed an idyllic childhood, played a ridiculous amount of golf, toiled in his father’s independent grocery store, and eventually graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree and a teaching credential. Following a few weeks of substitute-teaching in the Burbank Unified School District, he decided it was time for a career change.
Self-identified as a proud Epicurean, his love for good food and wine led him to enter the nascent retail fine-wine industry in Southern California where he happily flourished for 42 years.
Throughout this period, the fruits of his natural eye for photographic subject matter and composition enjoyed a very limited audience. However, upon Fishman's return from traveling through Spain in the spring of 2000, a friend and co-owner of Gallery 55 in Venice, California, viewed the images of Spain Fishman captured and insisted he mount a show. Titled Spanish Tables, the exhibit proved both successful and exhilarating. More travel and new cameras continued to generate compelling images. However, it took his retiring from the wine industry in 2018 to provide the impetus and time to present the show on view today.
Known for his eclectic tastes, Fishman's images (dated from 2000 to 2021) defy pigeonholing or categorization. Viewing his work is inevitably confounding, as one never knows what’s coming next. The creative door is always left ajar, just wide enough to allow serendipity to occasionally enter the picture.
