Tim O'Kane
The tradition of still-life is almost as old as the art of painting itself but it can take place in respect of modernity. It does not have to be in opposition to it. Tradition can be retained while still speaking to our time, our current experience. I believe the art of still-life is still as viable as ever. It affords the artist an endless world of possibilities for distilling a contemplative order from the noisy chaos of the world.
I began painting the still-life twenty-five years into my career. I had previously given most of my attentions to the figure. It was 1990 that I did my first still-life, setting up simple domestic objects on my kitchen table and begging everyone in my family not to touch them. They were not pleased that my obsession had escaped the studio. That very first time I went for the minimalist approach, and have stayed with it ever since.
Within the definition of “still-life” is the quality of stabilizing that which is ever moving and becoming our past. The objects are collected and arranged, illuminated by the light of the studio window, the drawing is made, the colors gradually applied, tonalities adjusted toward warmth or coolness, details articulated, many seen only after extended observation. Days go by, weeks sometimes before it is done. In that time, it has become both an illusion and an actual thing, an object—both a recollection and an experience in the present.
Tim O’Kane, a Virginia artist currently living in Charlottesville, has been exhibiting his paintings and drawings for four decades. He has been the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships and awards from The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Greenville County Museum of Art, The Chrysler Museum and the University of Virginia Center for the Liberal Arts.
Tim will be exhibiting a collection of small and mid-size still lifes during the months of October and November 2009.