PAINTING of the WEEK
Paintings fresh off the easel, posted weekly and available at our Gallery
"House by The Sea” (36x30") Oil on canvas by Donald Jurney
"House By The Sea” (36 x 30")
Oil by Donald Jurney ($28,500)
"He makes them up"......
"Excuse me?"......
"Donald Jurney, the painter, he makes them up. His paintings are completely made up out of his head......
"C'mon".....Are you saying he doesn’t paint these directly from life? He doesn't use photos or anything?....
"Correct. They are entirely from his imagination".
(From a conversation with a gallery representative exhibiting Jurenys work in Boston in 2010).
I couldn’t believe it. The images were so vividly real to me, naturalistically observed, filled with poetry, feeling and painted with the highest technical proficiency. How could this be so? I was 41 years old at the time, but still naive enough to. simply reach out and ask him. I'm laughing as I write this but Donald wrote back to me and invited me to his studio to see for myself.
In a short time, I was parked in a studio chair in his Amesbury studio approximately three feet from a massive canvas that I will describe as the size of a mattress.. I felt alive and excited at the prospect of pulling back the curtain of this Houdini revealing his magic.
He took out a small round Rembrandt bristle brush...the width of a pinky finger.. No way is he going to paint this monster canvas with that little thing. I could hear the voice of Nathan Goldstein in my head from my Art Institute painting class in 1992, "Use the largest brush possible in. the beginning...think broadly. Start with a broom and finish with a needle". "Uuuuum,...Nope.
With no reference of any kind, using only Burnt Umber, Ultramarine blue and a little Liquin as medium, Donald made a random scribble and looked at me....."I make a mark and it looks like this.....so I'll make another one that looks kind of different".
"You have no idea what you are going to paint at this point?" I asked.
"NO". I just keep making marks and shapes until it turns into something. It could change. I don't know. It could be different tomorrow".
The moral of the story is Donald Jurney is magic. LOL!
Happy Birthday to my dear friend and mentor. I love you my friend.
(January, 2023)
Oil by Donald Jurney ($28,500)
"He makes them up"......
"Excuse me?"......
"Donald Jurney, the painter, he makes them up. His paintings are completely made up out of his head......
"C'mon".....Are you saying he doesn’t paint these directly from life? He doesn't use photos or anything?....
"Correct. They are entirely from his imagination".
(From a conversation with a gallery representative exhibiting Jurenys work in Boston in 2010).
I couldn’t believe it. The images were so vividly real to me, naturalistically observed, filled with poetry, feeling and painted with the highest technical proficiency. How could this be so? I was 41 years old at the time, but still naive enough to. simply reach out and ask him. I'm laughing as I write this but Donald wrote back to me and invited me to his studio to see for myself.
In a short time, I was parked in a studio chair in his Amesbury studio approximately three feet from a massive canvas that I will describe as the size of a mattress.. I felt alive and excited at the prospect of pulling back the curtain of this Houdini revealing his magic.
He took out a small round Rembrandt bristle brush...the width of a pinky finger.. No way is he going to paint this monster canvas with that little thing. I could hear the voice of Nathan Goldstein in my head from my Art Institute painting class in 1992, "Use the largest brush possible in. the beginning...think broadly. Start with a broom and finish with a needle". "Uuuuum,...Nope.
With no reference of any kind, using only Burnt Umber, Ultramarine blue and a little Liquin as medium, Donald made a random scribble and looked at me....."I make a mark and it looks like this.....so I'll make another one that looks kind of different".
"You have no idea what you are going to paint at this point?" I asked.
"NO". I just keep making marks and shapes until it turns into something. It could change. I don't know. It could be different tomorrow".
The moral of the story is Donald Jurney is magic. LOL!
Happy Birthday to my dear friend and mentor. I love you my friend.
(January, 2023)