Artist Spotlight: Fred Gemmell in San Diego Home and Garden

A passionate painter and a nascent gallery own-er (his gallery participated in Art San Diego 2011), Gemmell is an engineer by degree, an architect by training, a furniture maker by trade and a legendary commercial and residential interior designer.

He grew up in Panama, constructing jungle tree houses 60 feet up in the canopies of mahogany trees. He moved to the United States in 1968 to study marine engineering at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kingspoint, New York.

During his time at the military academy, Gemmell sought his jungle refuge in art. He began to paint. Using broad strokes of violent color against backgrounds of lush and layered filigree, his paintings capture the movement and breadth of the jungle of his youth.

"The jungle is larger than life and full of action - darts of light streaming down through tall canopies and birds flashing through the rich foliage," he says. "The interaction of speed, light and movement create the magic in my works."

Out of college, Gemmell moved to San Diego to buy a yacht to sail around the world. But in the process he fell in love with boat building, and that segued into high-end furniture fabrication and a design career. Over the next 15 years Gemmell be- came a master custom furniture maker, running a shop of 20 craftsmen, with projects to his name such as the distinctive lobby of Helmut Jahn's One America Plaza, combining intricately worked Karelian burl panels and stainless-steel detailing.

Gemmell took his love for design and hands- on engineering expertise and dove into interior design, establishing Matrix Design Studio, built on his solid reputation as an innovative designer with technical know-how.

"I've worked with the best interior designers in town, including six years with legendary Arthur Porras," he says. "The attention to detail and so- phistication in Arthur's designs taught me a lot."

After years of partnering with San Diego architects to create masterful interiors, Gemmell base-jumped forward into his original passion for architecture.

This year, Matrix is in high demand with exciting projects on the docket, including an oceanfront bachelor pad replete with a glass-bottom, roof-deck pool and a rotating hydraulic garage ramp specially designed for sports cars. Another project, on a 2-acre canyon hollow, has indoor hanging gardens and a floating lap pool.

Two years ago, Gemmell surprised everyonewhen he held a show at Jett Gallery to view the vibrant paintings he had been creating after hours.

"My business life is all about teamwork, which I really honor, but my painting is the one thing I do alone," he says. "I am very humbled that the paintings I do at night for myself also speak to other people's awe of nature and craving for the wild."