Tournesol Exhibition in association with the Headlands Center for the Arts
http://www.headlands.org/index.asp?flashok=true
July 6 “ August 5, 2011
Reception: Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Time: 6-8pm
Gallery Hours:
Wednesday thru Saturday, 12-5pm
“Leamy™s paintings create mythology both idiosyncratic and universal in scope. The symbolic characters in the paintings function as vital signs and beings in their own right, who together, enact both the personal poetic, and at times universal archetypes.
In the recent work of painter Jack Leamy one encounters what may appear to be forms of disclosure or perhaps acts of revealing. The works are an unusual synthesis of the symbolic and embodied.
“At the core of and within the continuum of these works is the concert of painting and its ethical incarnation. These are physically celebratory and psychically charged works that embrace both the intellectual and instinctual impulses of the ˜author™. For the most part individuals portrayed are the artist (and his totemic self) his family and others that are close to him. They all function as pertinent and vital; as both symbolic and as beings in their own right, who together enact both the personal poetic and at times the universal archetypal. There is equally the chimeric shift between drama and the attendance of humor. All of those presented function as specifically identifiable and within the realm of the mythologies that still manage to haunt deeper consciousness; the author is a visual orator and ring master, one, who with poignancy encounters both the re-presentational and otherwise invisible worlds; of doubt, love, fear, the primal and the views of civilization; equally the sensuous and spiritual are set amidst the domain of nature at its most sublime and emblematic counter valancy to the humanity it surrounds. In many ways we are placed as voyeurs as much as audience and in that uncertainty lies the potency of the work- are we witnesses then to the private realizations, both those of the artist and the protagonists within these painted worlds?”
The artist here then has claimed the role of shaman, in the sense there is a discernible quality of ritual both in terms of execution and content; between inner consciousness and public demonstration.
Each work is independent and yet connected. These works are markers on a journey of inquiry, each piece sentient and functioning as a psychic archive; of that that may be beyond the wordable; these are both declarations and meditations identifying the shift from the visible to the visual.”
Jeremy Morgan, Assoc. Professor of Painting, San Francisco Art Institute
HEADLANDS CENTER FOR THE ARTS: Situated in a campus of artist-renovated military buildings in the Marin Headlands, just minutes north of San Francisco, Headlands Center for the Arts hosts an internationally recognized Artist in Residence program, as well as interdisciplinary public programs and subsidized studio rentals for artists of all disciplines. Through these programs, Headlands offers opportunities for artist research, dialogue, and exchanges that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.
THE TOURNESOL AWARD
The Tournesol Award was established to recognize one painter each year, and to support them in taking the first major steps towards establishing their career in the Bay Area. The award provides an artist with the financial and community support to assist his/her artistic development in the critical first years after school. By supporting local artists at an early stage in their careers, Headlands hopes to contribute to the vitality of the Bay Area’s artistic community.
For more info:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/