Gregory Ingerson is a mixed media artist who you could say gets straight to the point. He reached another “pin-nacle” in his art career this past fall when he was awarded First Place in the Varied Techniques category in the 2025 Best of the Best juried art exhibition at the A.E. Backus Museum & Gallery.
Ingerson won the prize for his vibrant, meticulously detailed piece “Squared Orbit,” created in the repetitive “square-dot, square-dot” pattern he has made his particular form of Pointillism.
Just beneath his understated demeanor is a remarkable personal story, and one which laid the foundation of his unique artistic creations.
Born with a physical disability that could have prevented him from ever walking, Ingerson instead conquered the handicap through years of training and participation in precision Artistic Roller Skating. He eventually earned prizes that included First Place Roller Skating Professional two times in the state, and three times in the region. He also earned fifth place in the nation.
What does the discipline and focus of competitive roller skating have to do with his art?
Everything. Ingerson applies the same rigorous effort into his two-dimensional works as he did to control his legs and feet.
“Every day I get up at 3 in the morning,” he explains.
“I’ve been doing this routine for the last four years. I work until 7. Afterwards, I do a check at my irrigation company, then return home by 11:30. I clean up to eat lunch with my lovely wife, Mary, of 45 years, and then I go back to my artwork from two in the afternoon until supper.”
The same precision and discipline that had helped him to become a professional skater are the qualities he incorporates in his artistic process. With his artwork, Ingerson patiently and individually places thousands of straight pins in a pattern to create what at first glance may appear to be a simple curve in the composition.
However, as viewers study his pieces more closely, they can become mesmerized by the repetition of the pins and dots. The result is a creation not unlike a photographic mosaic, where the whole is the sum of its parts.
Although art and effort generally cannot be quantified, Ingerson asserts otherwise when describing his two-dimensional works.
“My piece, ‘Destruction of a Sphere,’ was made with an estimated 132,000 straight pins and the total weight of it comes to 8 pounds, just in the pins,” says Ingerson.
“Destruction of a Sphere” resembles an unencumbered spray or spill of matter until closer inspection, when it becomes clear that each pin is spaced perfectly.
The patterns stack in rows alongside each other, where even the “frame” of the work is very much part of the piece. Ingerson describes it as “an abstraction of another abstraction.”
“I integrate weaving and layering of materials such as earth tone colors, string, tiles, dots and dress maker pins. I believe there is an optical pleasure for the viewer.”
There is also an inescapable tactile pleasure with his pieces. It becomes an almost irresistible urge for the viewer to want to gently touch the pins, as if to confirm that what they’re seeing in the artworks are, in fact, skillfully placed, colorful pins, all of which enhance the compositions with light, depth and texture.
One untitled three-dimensional wall piece from Ingerson’s Square-dot Series has a Mayan and Mexican flair. The design and colors in the work, currently displayed in the personal collection of his friends, Shane Dewitt and Susie Miller, resemble the tapestry of the hand-woven cloth associated with that tribal and regional culture.
In addition to pins, Ingerson says that he also works with watercolor, paper, balsa wood, and actual weeds and stones.
“I’m into texture,” he explains.
These materials are most evident in the haunting piece “Burnt House,” an eerie looking two-dimensional structure replete with its own painted “ghost” inside, as seen from the doorway.
Its inspiration was a fleeting glimpse of a charred, abandoned home Ingerson saw while traveling in Atlanta.
“I burned the edges of the balsa wood, penned in ink, and I used colored pencils and watercolor,” says Ingerson of the composition. He adds that he will probably do another one, most likely a two-story house this time.
“It’s fun as well as therapeutic. It sat behind my closet and forgot I even had it. But my friends Shane and Susie love it and here it stays displayed in their home.”
Ingerson calls himself a “native Floridian Pointillist,” who was raised in Vero Beach and Tampa during the 1960s. An artist all his life, he earned a fine arts degree from the University of Florida.
He also owned and operated an irrigation company for 41 years and now, as a semi-retiree, finds he has more time to devote to his art.
He has accumulated numerous art accolades over the years. Locally he has won several First Place and Best in Show Awards at the Vero Beach Art Club’s Art by the Sea Exhibition, and twice won first place at the VBAC Art on the Island exhibition.
“I want my Pointillist Art to be enjoyed by people of all ages and cultures as well as inspiration for art collectors and patrons of contemporary abstract art,” says Ingerson.
Photos by Joshua Kodis
