Dan McDermott graduated from University of Northumbria in Newcastle in 1995 with a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art Practice. He works from a studio in the Yorkshire Dales but is currently making an impact in London. Clapham Art Gallery is delighted to present Dan with his debut one-person show in London in the first part of a two-show programme. Dan will be back with us in April of 2002.
Dan McDermott graduated from University of Northumbria in Newcastle in
1995 with a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art Practice. He works from a
studio in the Yorkshire Dales but is currently making an impact in
London. Clapham Art Gallery is delighted to present Dan with his debut
one-person show in London in the first part of a two-show programme. Dan
will be back with us in April of 2002.
McDermott's paintings are fresh, original and expertly executed. Drawing
on the highly skilled genre of photo-realism, the artist occupies the
space between various forms of this type of representation. Always
emphasising the choice of subject matter, his works may depict a
motorway, a speeding car, the exterior of a San Francisco tenement block
or an exquisitely painted cloudy sky. Whatever the choice, the outcome
is always a slick and highly contemporary rendition of something that we
have all seen before. However, McDermott always imprints his own
personal style on these various scenes and we can never travel the
motorway or look into a cloudy sky in quite the same way again. A rainy
motorway may be beautified or a speeding car frozen in motion. We are
forced to register that which is usually fleeting and attend it with
longing eyes. McDermott invites the gaze and we are found not challenged
but seduced. Modern life is in a sense romanticised by the use of and
movement in the paint but the work always remains new and is enlivened
by compositional cropping and unusual vantage points.
In effect we are presented with a various selection of the usual, a
selection of images that has developed from reality via the photographic
process through to the productive technique of the artist. In every
generation the image undergoes a change of sorts and the final viewpoint
lies with the spectator. It is here when the work finally arrives.
Gallery Hours: Tue-Sat 1-9pm Sun 1-5pm
Clapham Art Gallery
61 venn street london SW4 0BD
t 20 77200955