NORTH ADAMS — While many painters strike rich with inspiration, and embark on a journey to fulfill expectation and ambition, Donald Beal prefers to approach his artistic process like a miner, armed only with the flashlight of his senses, searching for possibilities.
Using observations of nature as a launch pad, Beal creates paintings that reflect not only his journey as a human, but the senses that he gathers from his observations.
Beal’s paintings are part of an exhibit currently showing at Kolok Gallery on Union St. that celebrates the use of light as a vehicle for expression. “Place For Color,” which runs until Oct. 11, features Beal’s work alongside Cathleen Daley’s. The two painters complement each other effectively; both artists rely heavily on the nature of color to give life to their unique expression.
Nature and self
Donald Beal’s work breaks new ground in a gentle but inviting manner; his use of color and light are only devices designed to accent his unique sense of observation. What sets Beal’s expression apart from those of his formers, however, is the lens from which he gazes. His perspective of nature is, in a sobering yet enlightening style, reflective of himself.
“I’m more interested in coming up with a voice that communicates something felt,” said Beal. “Rather than (highlighting the beauty of a location), I’d rather add something that makes the viewer or myself feel something. In some way, it translates experience; it somehow gives voice to experience.”
Creating small paintings directly from his observation in the woods of Beech Forest, near his home in Provincetown, Beal values place as a catalyst for receiving inspiration. His paintings, however, are not necessarily specific to the locale in which they were painted. His portrayal of nature, seen through his observations of his own senses, combine the human element with nature; thick woods, accented by branches, changing leaves, and blue sky visible through the spaces, communicate the fact that observation is subjective. Beal says the physical subjects he paints are only the starting points for the instinctive traces of emotion and echoes of memories that come across in his paintings.
“I’m not trying to literally make the things in front of me,” said Beal. “It’s really a frantic, intuitive conversation, a contemplation of what’s out in front of me, what it’s like to be there at that moment.”
Beal uses colors that are not usually associated with nature, such as pink, teal, and neon green, highlighting the flow of senses that he taps into for inspiration. Often, dashes of color appear in unpredictable places, allowing nature to step out of its own boundaries. Beal also uses shadows effectively, which, when combined with the predominate theme of autumn in his paintings, indicate the notion of transition.
In addition to the small paintings, Beal also paints larger pieces with what he calls “free-form improvisation,” which allows the painting to take a direction of its own. Beal believes that the results of the spontaneous process is unpredictable.
“One of the big paintings started off as a figure, and I turned it upside down and it eventually found its way into being landscape,” said Beal. “I wasn’t trying to make a landscape; I certainly wasn’t trying to make a red tree. These are some of the things that just happen in the course of the painting.”
Although the larger pieces each seem to have a definite theme and will send viewers on an intellectual hunt to gather the message, Beal says that he is not setting out to articulate a certain significance. The practice of beginning a painting with an existing vision and then attempting to realize it is a method that Beal has learned not to employ — his process of creation differs in that it is a reaction to the range of senses he experiences while painting.
“I really try to come to the painting without an agenda,” said Beal. “I just don’t seem to be that kind of painter that can consciously make an angry, or violent, or happy painting. My paintings just become whatever it is that they become, through an intuitive process.”
The message of Beal’s work seems to be the message itself. His paintings do, in a sense, invoke the question of mystery and secrecy in nature, but only use those questions as a footnote for the greater picture. Instead of creating an outline of the physical objects in front of him, Beal records the imprint of life reflecting back at him. If art is not only a reflection of a reality seen by the artist, but a glimpse into the perspective of the artist, then Beal’s series of nature-inspired paintings provide an intimate view of his personal structure of seeing.
By Ben Runnels, Special to The Transcript
Thursday, September 21, 2006