Converge Gallery is pleased to present a new and vibrant showcase of artwork by local artist Damon McCloskey.
For approximately twelve years, Damon has remained fully engaged creating paintings and drawings. The early stage of the artist’s journey touches his spirit with indescribable joy and bittersweet melancholia. Damon has experienced moments of white hot passion and subdued them with the gentle stroke of a brush. Conversely, the brush has at times morphed into a hammer or screwdriver and forced his hand to strike out with rage. The gentility and refinement that Damon has encountered, tasted, and revealed, has often been fleeting. Dignity has been given only to be stripped away again during the course of a series of unsuccessful compositions. However the dreams of spiraling through Andromeda and further still. Propelling his consciousness towards that which is unknown, arcane, venerated, and worthy of struggle.
For this upcoming exhibition, Damon’s primary focus has been the interpretation of cultural consciousness, the individualistic lens which allows us as individuals to navigate the world and collide with other conscious entities. He attempts to make sense of the time (temporal) and place (spatial) that he exists in by fusing together elements of expressionism, symbolism, surrealism, non-objectivity, impressionism, automatic drawing, freely associated lines of inquiry and hard edge geometrics.
Sources of inspiration for this artwork include but are not limited to anthropology, peace activism, art history, ethnomusicology, literature, waking consciousness, dream states, psychedelic visions, war, propaganda, male and female relationships, philosophy, capitalism, anarchism, mortality, obsessions, addictions, counterculture figures, freedom, and blatant contradiction. By making art that calls into question the status quo and by pushing myself beyond my limits I am doing my part to shift the paradigm and spread a message of strong spirit, peaceful living, love, and solidarity.
“Lipstick Collars and Power Couples” will be on display at Converge Gallery May 1 – through May 30, 2015, with an opening on Friday, May 1, beginning at 6 pm.
More about the artist’s work:
When Damon is asked to describe his artwork he does his best to be conscientious and respectful to those who pose such a question. The thing is, Damon is terribly averse to the ego stroking parties and back-handed competition so important to some artists. The one-up games involving discreet artistic and intellectual espionage runs counter to the goals that he has set forth as a visual artist.
Damon has no interest in trending or going viral just to be forgotten fifteen seconds later. Damon sees this as a life-long process. An artist must be more than comfortable to sit at the table alone. Conversely, if such a table, room, field, or stage is surrounded by individuals the artist must be able to individuate themselves and assert autonomy respectfully and with grace.
In addition, a balance must be struck with ambition and acceptance. An artist will always strive to make each work more successful than the previous work. The key is to accept the fact that this is not always possible and to move forward regardless of potential defeat.
Damon intends for his work to be bold, uncompromising, and unapologetic because all of the mistakes he makes and all of the lessons learned from each defeat has provided growth as an artist.
About Converge Gallery
Converge Gallery was founded in 2011. The gallery, already internationally recognized for its ambitious program, has been extremely selective and focused on both emerging and notable mid-career artists with an increasingly more conceptual direction oriented to display the most challenging and innovative art.
What we are trying to do, without any pretense to define art, is to elevate the discussion about art, reality and perception. Converge Gallery’s goal is to sell the meaning and cultural context of an artwork along with the individual point of view of the artist that, encouraged to aim for a certain level of aesthetic value, clarity of content and vision is also required, as well as the ideal collector, to have an extensive knowledge about the intricate dynamics of contemporary art.
The greatest achievement for us would be to extend the boundaries of art beyond art itself and generate a dialectic exchange between artist and general public by interacting with the other disciplines with the objective to determine a wider understanding of what is happening here and now.
The gallery is located at 140 West Fourth Street, Williamsport, PA and gallery hours are Tuesday thru Saturday from 11:00 am – 6:00 pm.
For all press inquiries, photo requests and a PDF catalog of the exhibition, please contact John Yogodzinski, Director, Converge Gallery : john@convergegallery.com. Web: www.convergegallery.com. Tel: 570.435.7080 Address: Converge Gallery 140 West 4th Street, Williamsport, PA 17701, USA