Joseph McNamara and Josu茅 Bessiake: A Bird鈥檚 Last Look
Spring has arrived and Gallery NAGA is pleased to present our third major exhibition of new paintings by Joseph McNamara and in the back room, a show of work by a budding young artist, Josu茅 Bessiake.
Joseph McNamara is a New York-based, realist painter whose work鈥攐ften large-scale鈥攊s centered on paintings of the industrial landscape and his relationship to it. His paintings are painstakingly detailed and can take months and even years, to complete. McNamara uses photographs as aids, however, the paintings are not 鈥減hoto-realistic鈥�: each painting strays away from a strict accounting of the subject matter and takes on a life of its own.McNamara has been based in New York since 1972 when he graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art. Never comfortable with the world of galleries, McNamara has largely flown under the radar, his work mostly found in private collections. This exhibition will include paintings McNamara finished in the last three years.
McNamara chooses to work with imagery that carries iconic power. He sometimes locates his subject matter with an arranged plane trip, sometimes an unplanned trespass on a construction site nearby, and everything in between. Abandoned Silver Mine Equipment, Butte, Montana depicts just as the title suggests鈥攎etal equipment in various states of decline鈥攅ach surface beautifully rendered and becoming one with the landscape. Many of his works include items that have been abandoned, unfinished or are waiting to be repurposed or rebuilt. McNamara captures the disarray and chaos and controls it with the painterly precision of a surgeon.
McNamara considers the paintings as non-fiction explorations and chooses his subject matter with that perspective. 鈥淭he question I get asked most frequently is, 鈥楬ow do you choose your subject matter?鈥� and the answer is pattern recognition. Pattern recognition in this case is distinguishing a distinct visual rhythm in life situations encountered either by choice, which means traveling to pre-determined locations that I know will stimulate my curiosity, or by spontaneous reactions to otherwise apparently unremarkable life circumstances that fit these requirements. In other words, I seek out content that looks like my painting.鈥�
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Spring has arrived and Gallery NAGA is pleased to present our third major exhibition of new paintings by Joseph McNamara and in the back room, a show of work by a budding young artist, Josu茅 Bessiake.
Joseph McNamara is a New York-based, realist painter whose work鈥攐ften large-scale鈥攊s centered on paintings of the industrial landscape and his relationship to it. His paintings are painstakingly detailed and can take months and even years, to complete. McNamara uses photographs as aids, however, the paintings are not 鈥減hoto-realistic鈥�: each painting strays away from a strict accounting of the subject matter and takes on a life of its own.McNamara has been based in New York since 1972 when he graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art. Never comfortable with the world of galleries, McNamara has largely flown under the radar, his work mostly found in private collections. This exhibition will include paintings McNamara finished in the last three years.
McNamara chooses to work with imagery that carries iconic power. He sometimes locates his subject matter with an arranged plane trip, sometimes an unplanned trespass on a construction site nearby, and everything in between. Abandoned Silver Mine Equipment, Butte, Montana depicts just as the title suggests鈥攎etal equipment in various states of decline鈥攅ach surface beautifully rendered and becoming one with the landscape. Many of his works include items that have been abandoned, unfinished or are waiting to be repurposed or rebuilt. McNamara captures the disarray and chaos and controls it with the painterly precision of a surgeon.
McNamara considers the paintings as non-fiction explorations and chooses his subject matter with that perspective. 鈥淭he question I get asked most frequently is, 鈥楬ow do you choose your subject matter?鈥� and the answer is pattern recognition. Pattern recognition in this case is distinguishing a distinct visual rhythm in life situations encountered either by choice, which means traveling to pre-determined locations that I know will stimulate my curiosity, or by spontaneous reactions to otherwise apparently unremarkable life circumstances that fit these requirements. In other words, I seek out content that looks like my painting.鈥�
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