Still Life#1-Skulls, 40 x 37.25, oil, wax on canvas
For Immediate Release
Contact: Karl Slocum
267 455 0279
karl@knappgallery.com
The Knapp Gallery Presents
R. Michael Walsh: Recent Works 2010
First Friday Opening: September 3rd
Exhibition: September 3rd – September 26th
Artist Reception: Sat. September 11th (6pm -9 pm)
(Philadelphia) – The Knapp Gallery continues its tradition of First Friday openings and welcomes R. Michael Walsh in his second solo show at the Knapp Gallery. The Knapp Gallery’s “house” painter, Michael has completed numerous commissions for Knapp gallery owners Barclay and Rebecca Knapp. A veteran painter, Walsh graduated from The Tyler School of Art.
Solid and definable work best describes a low-key cat that can paint his ass off. With astonishing pointedness, Michael guides viewers through his mythical and labyrinth-ical world. Recent Works 2010, including a few self-portrait-esque images, Michael takes of the kid gloves and brandishes the bare knuckles of a youthful pugilist. At fighting weight Walsh is razor sharp. Recent Works 2010 is near intimidating, challenging us with combating elements - the creature and the creation. Balance and harmony counter a demanding imbalance. Causality is brilliance.
An author through imagery, Walsh weaves tales of forbidden ecstasies, wrestling with issues of morality and or immorality, adolescent naiveté and decay. Of all my painters, Walsh paints with the hardest edge. Contemplative by nature, Walsh investigates below the surface - questioning the root cause of our yearnings. Classical tone and composition, solids and stripes, Walsh’s pale and matte palette enhances his quietly dark dramas; absolutely dark in their absolutism. With no middle ground, Walsh’s paintings are about life and death; albeit served with a side of satire.
No bones about it, Michael’s work is a heady psychedelic representation of an archeologist’s dream while on acid. An in depth study in the “still life”, Walsh will tell you that a bone is as still as it gets. Skeletons and skulls, beyond human infrastructure are things of beauty; their core value outweighing their inherent morbidity.
