Don Gray paintings
Still-lifes: Rembrandt, Gauguin
Art review of still-life painting. "Although the concept of the 'masterpiece' seems to have gone out of style, this is a word that constantly comes to mind in confronting Gray's major works. 'Still-life with Rembrandt and Gauguin' is a 70 x 84 acrylic filled with a myriad of objects on brilliant red cloths...The Rembrandt book is open to a nude Danae so beautifully modeled that it does not conform to the surface of the page but takes on a life of its own...The Gauguin self-portrait is an allusion to Gray himself, as an artist, and the need for contact with other art as an antidote to isolation and even loneliness."
ART NEWS
"He offers many exquisite still-lifes that incorporate books, small portraits and a plethora of found objects... Gray’s magnum opus in the show is a huge acrylic canvas called ‘Still-Life with Rembrandt and Gauguin.’ It is virtually covered by what seems like hundreds of forms and shapes that range from a nude female torso to a pair of gloves to a hurricane lamp to a vase to racks of clothing to books and so on. Each object vibrates against an intense red background resulting in an incredibly rich painting that is a statement of artistic virtuosity."
NEW JERSEY DAILY RECORD |
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 Don Gray: Still-life with Rembrandt and Gauguin: acrylic, 70 x 84 "This still-life, like all my still-lifes, resulted from a search of the house for objects that caught my attention. Art books are again a major element, along with the cow skull. I deliberately painted the figure more three-dimensionally than the surface of the book might allow, perhaps to accentuate the feminine blessing she seems to bestow. I put boxes under the fabric to create different elevations. My over-riding desire was to pack this still-life as full of things as I could. I hung many of Jessie's dresses as a background, to subtly activate even that area of the painting. In a way, I see myself in the Gauguin self-portrait surveying the richness of the world (or the world I create through art). That is a hornets' nest in the lower right." |
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