Gary Buckendorf approaches his practice as a daily ritual in which process itself offers renewal. Each session begins with the gathering of materials and marking tools, followed by the simple act of securing canvas or paper to the wall. He begins as if doodling, allowing the first mark to surface a set of intuitive constraints: Don’t put it in the middle. Don’t put it on the side. These seemingly arbitrary rules—echoes of abstract expressionism—serve not as limitations but as prompts, drawn as much from art history as from natural rhythms. For Buckendorf, the composition finds its shape through asymmetry and tension, aligning his work not only with artistic traditions but with the unpredictable logic of nature.

At the heart of his practice is an obsession with surface and gesture: the endlessly varied strokes of paint, the scuff marks and smears, the soft gradations of charcoal and chalk. Buckendorf envies the immediacy of these dry materials—their direct contact with paper—and seeks a relationship to his work that is equally intimate, tactile, and surprising. In his hands, mark-making becomes both a method of inquiry and a record of presence, with each trace carrying the residue of daily life.