(ASBURY PARK, NJ) -- Director Evan Goodchild of Goodchild Media will screen his feature-length directorial debut, The Painted Life of Gregory Gillespie, at The ShowRoom Cinema on Friday, March 20, 2026 in what marks the films New Jersey premiere, and a homecoming for the late artist who grew up in Roselle Park, NJ.
In this 90 minute sprawling feature, director Evan Goodchild learns that an artist committed suicide in the converted art studio where he lived for three years. Further investigation reveals it wasn’t just any artist, but Gregory Gillespie (1936-2000), an American master of surreal, haunting paintings and sculptures, some of which are in collections as renowned as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney, and The Hirshhorn in Washington D.C.
Drawing on previously unseen archival footage and extensive interviews with artists, family and art world insiders, Goodchild uncovers the full story about an artist’s escape from an insular New Jersey upbringing to study in New York and Italy. The film’s arresting photography and storytelling pulls viewers into Gillespie’s extraordinary artistic world, where he became one of the most celebrated, coveted and disturbing painters of the 1970s and beyond.
The film explores the groundbreaking work and legacy of American artist Gregory Gillespie (1936 - 2000). Born in New Jersey, Gillespie spent seven years in Italy studying and painting before settling in Western Massachusetts in 1970, where he remained until his untimely death in 2000. Ever a visionary, Gillespie radically altered the path set for "new realism" painters by "rorschaching" into the mysteries of his own psychological demons while lifting cues from his careful study of Renaissance masters to conjure truly original postmodern masterpieces.
Tickets to the screening event are $20 and are available for purchase online. Showtime is 7:00pm. The ShowRoom is located at 707 Cookman Avenue in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
The documentary has won several awards during its recent run in film festivals including Best Film Audience Award at the Cannes International Film Week Festival, Best Feature Documentary at Doc.Boston, and the Judges’ Award at the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival. The film’s writer Christopher Thomas Wood and Asbury Park artist Frankie Mainieri will join Evan Goodchild in person for a discussion after the film screening.
Writer John Skoyles remarked on the film: “It is a stunning work and I was very moved by it. I recognize when I have been in the presence of an exacting, penetrating and revealing work of art, and this is it. Toward the end, it is said, ‘impeccably concealing’, in reference to Gregory’s work, and the same can be said of this film, but adding, ‘impeccably revealing’.”
The Painted Life of Gregory Gillespie is executive produced by Eric Brecher and produced by Rick Segal and Robert Kohler, all avid followers of the idiosyncratic painter. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts will be screening the film to the public the night before on Thursday, March 19th, concurrent with its landmark Bodies and Souls: The Kohler Collection exhibition (March 14-July 12) in which many of Gillespie’s paintings are heavily featured.
Gregory Gillespie filmed between self-portraits at The Hirshhorn 1977 retrospective exhibition. Photo by Kris Cox-2
Director Evan Goodchild takes art fans on a riveting journey emanating outward from Gillespie’s sacred studio space in Belchertown, Massachusetts to The Whitney in New York, The Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C., and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Drawing on archival footage – much of it seen and heard here for the first time – and extensive interviews with former director of The Whitney Adam Weinberg, artist William Beckman, artist and critic Alexi Worth, author A.J. Verdelle, and more, The Painted Life of Gregory Gillespie investigates Gillespie’s breakthroughs in technique and invention over a rarefied career while utilizing the paintings themselves as a portal into the artist’s fascinating biography. Working closely alongside New York-based writer Christopher Wood, the team has sifted through the 118 journals that the artist left behind after his death, revealing the artist's innermost musings on technique.
Gillespie’s life and work have proven to be challenging and rewarding subjects, according to Goodchild: “Researching Gregory Gillespie has been both delightful and confounding. Everyone considered him their best friend yet he was notoriously a studio hermit. His paintings were brooding and painful yet his personality was buoyant and approachable. He observed the great mystery quite closely.”
Evan Goodchild studied film and audio at Emerson College in Boston, and teaches documentary filmmaking in public and university settings. He has recently edited and directed a short documentary AfriCOBRA & Nelson Stevens: Art for the People, which was screened as part of the Roxbury International Film Festival and broadcast on WGBH Boston. The Painted Life of Gregory Gillespie is Goodchild’s first feature film.
(LEFT to RIGHT) Robin Freedenfeld, Scott Prior, Gregory Gillespie, Jane Lund, Randall Deihl. Photo by Scott Prior
