James Patrick Reid: Paintings

Exhibition Dates: November 1, 2016 - November 26, 2016

Reception: Thursday, November 3, 6-8 pm

The Painting Center is pleased to present paintings by James Patrick Reid, comprising moody romantic landscapes, portraits and histories. Apart from the portraits, which are painted from life, all the works in this show are from the artist’s imagination and memory, nourished by long walks in woods and along rivers, and by the mind’s journeys through history and legend. People and nature, and subjects full of action and emotion, take shape in baroque rhythms and moving chiaroscuro. From the start of a painting, Reid is especially intent on achieving a quality of color which will be subtle and mysterious yet powerful. The color effect should convey the emotion of the scene first of all. Then the color relationships ought to set up a movement and establish the space within the painting. The linear aspects of the drawing fall into place amid the rhythms set up by the colors. It is of utmost importance to Reid that each painting unfolds rhythmically and organically. It must pulsate with life, its own life, not simply the mode of existence the artist willed for it but something more, something that surprises even the painter and that is all its own, never seen before.

Besides painting, Reid loves to teach and lecture about art, and has served on the Fine Arts faculty at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, the Art Students League, and the New York Academy of Art. He has lectured numerous times at Parsons School of Design, the New York Studio School, and at art schools and universities around the country. His lecture subjects range from "Art and Metaphysics" (at Oregon State University) to "A structural Comparison of Tintoretto's Raising of Lazarus and Seurat's Evening, Honfleur" (at the New York Studio School). Reid's work has been shown extensively in galleries, schools and museums on the East and West Coasts, and he has done many paintings and murals for churches. His studio is in Bushwick.