R AY D O N L E Y opening reception january 5 t h 6 – 9 pm
My paintings extend many of the ideas of portraiture and psychological exploration first articulated by the Renaissance and Baroque masters. The power of the imagery and the audacity of the technique demonstrated in much Baroque portraiture, for example, have fascinated me since my days as a graduate student of Dutch and Spanish 17th-century art. But rather than create anachronisms for their own sake, I choose to use such imagery and technique as a point of departure for exploring a world that is idiosyncratic, personal, and capable of transcending time and place. Thus I am more interested in evocation than I am in representation. And whereas much of the portraiture of the Renaissance and Baroque sought to reveal something of the state of mind of the subject, there is an aspect of my work that seeks to turn this idea around by presenting a kind of imagery that, instead, reveals something about the state of mind of the viewer. The subjects of my fictional portraits are the solitary itinerants who, together, comprise what I term “los bien perdidos,” or “the lost ones.” With their suggestions of silence, solitude, reverie — and even madness — these paintings are meant to evoke aspects of our more reflective (and sometimes darker) states. By tapping into these reflective/introspective states, I seek above all to create an art that, while seemingly possessing a Renaissance or Baroque pedigree, is itself rich with its own mythic and symbolic potential.
— Ray Donley
AWAKE IN THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT
opening reception: saturday january 5th 6 – 9 pm
Front Cover: Figure with Striped Cap (No. 3) 22" x 18", o/c, 2007
Figure with White Scarf 24" x 24", o/c, 2007
Figure with Skull (Vanitas) 32" x 32", o/c, 2007
Figure with Mask and Knife (No. 3) 48" x 40", o/c, 2007
Figure with White Cap 24" x 24", o/c, 2007
Velazquez Figure (World Gone Wrong) 78" x 58", o/c, 2007
518 julia street, new orleans, la 70130
Ecce Homo 24" x 24", o/c, 2007 ARTWORK © RAY DONLEY 2007 CATALOG © GALLERY BIENVENU
504.525.0518
www.gallerybienvenu.com