DONALD BEAL paintings

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            Donald Beal digs deep into the canvas in his search for form and color.  “I am non-object oriented.  In the early phases of a painting, it’s about building space, building relations.  I am not going for a particular subject, but let the brushwork suggest a space and then the space becomes the subject.”  Beal layers color and often turns the canvas sideways or upside down.  The forms shift.  The perspective is altered.  The shape “bubbles up from the subconscious” and becomes the strident green of summer leaves or the burnt red bark of a fallen tree trunk.  The form reveals itself as the planes of color shift and deepen. 

            Beal’s inspiration has tended toward images of his family home in DownEast Maine, which he has painted from memory.  A cove is bordered by forest with a small red boat in the foreground that anchors the canvas.  The strokes of paint are lush and heavy.  The colors are laid in thick bands that break the painting into abstracted elements of water, forest and sky.  A tree trunk juts violently through a canvas blurring the foliage behind it while a bird, a grebe or a loon, sits quietly holding a fish in its mouth.  The forest is impenetrable.  The tree trunk dominates the canvas and brings the eye down toward the bird, a surprise that draws the viewer in.  A waterlily is near its feet.  The revelations appear as if in a flash amid Beal’s layered and textured canvases.  And they comprise the wonder of Beal’s work.

            Beal studied at the Swain School of Design, the Yale Summer School of Music and Art, Brooklyn College and at Parsons School of Design where he worked with Paul Resika and Leland Bell.    He has had solo exhibitions at the Prince Street Gallery, New York (2003), Rising Tide Gallery, Provincetown (1996), Gallery Matrix, Provincetown (1993-1995), Hopkins Gallery, Wellfleet (1989-1992), and the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown (1991).  He has participated in group shows at the Cherrystone Gallery, Wellfleet (1999, 2002), Maurice Arlos Fine Arts, New York (2001), Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown (2000, 2001), The Painting Center, New York (1999), the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (1999, 1997, 1987), the Winifsky Gallery, Salem, MA (1995), the Hillyer Gallery, Northampton, MA (1994), Gallery X, New Bedford, MA (1992), and the Packard Gallery, Provincetown (1988).  He has been on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts, North Dartmouth since 1999.