Ray Donley | New Paintings/Old Obsessions

RAY DONLEY NEW PAINTINGS / OLD OBSESSIONS

RAY DONLEY’S OLD MASTERISM Ray Donley’s paintings are part of the New Old Masterism, a slowly but steadily emerging trend in contemporary art, involving not so much a “return to order,” as it was once called, but the realization that avantgarde art has become an institutional cliché — “hypertrophied,” as Clement Greenberg put it years ago — and that what once looked like the clichés of Old Master art are still full of vital rather than fragmentation, a balance of objective representation and subjective implication, respect for the mystery of the human as well as mastery of the medium. Donley is clearly a master of the medium of oil paint, as his subtle layering and textural richness suggest. It is highly evocative — emotionally persuasive — all the more so because of Donley’s exquisite chiaroscuro.

Donley’s imagination needs no prompting. The Old Masters intuitively understood that there is always something strange in beauty, as the philosopher Francis Bacon said, a perception confirmed by the strange beauty of Donley’s paintings, as well as the strangely philosophical figures that they bring to life.

DONALD KUSPIT

EXHIBITION DATES: MARCH 2 – APRIL 30, 2006 RECEPTION WITH THE ARTIST: SATURDAY, MARCH 4TH, 6–9 P.M.

Front Cover: Figure with a White Cap, 24" x 18," o/c, 2006

Homage to Rafael Coronel, 24" x 24," o/c, 2005

The Magician, 40" x 36," o/c, 2005

Pope with Mask, 32" x 32," o/c, 2006

El Perdido (No. 25), 48" x 40," o/c, 2006

The Crisis (No. 8), 24" x 24," o/c, 2006

ALL WORKS OF ART © 2006 RAY DONLEY CATALOG © GALLERY BIENVENU ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Photography: Catherine McMillan Back Cover: Boy with Mask, 48" x 40," o/c, 2006

518 JULIA STREET, NEW ORLEANS, LA 70130

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