OCEA

by Joel Dugan

For Immediate ReleaseSeptember 20, 2007

White Walls Gallery announces the opening of Ocea, a solo exhibition of new work by Joel Dugan.  The show will run from October 13 – November 3, 2007.  An opening reception for the public will be held on Saturday, October 13th, from 7-10 PM.

For Ocea, his first solo exhibition at the gallery, Joel Dugan introduces a new series of oil paintings, sculpture and installation, depicting dreamy, intimate portraits and landscapes of coastal ocean life. Central to the artist’s narrative are symbolic renderings of fog, boats, lighthouses and seabirds.  For many years, Dugan’s work has explored our culture’s complex relationship with life and nature and his work also touches on the passing of time and tradition as found in the impoverished global fishing industry today.

For the last few years, Dugan traveled extensively to rural Nova Scotia, Ireland and coastal New England, absorbing the history, architecture, literature, landscapes and flora and fauna of these distinct remote communities. Dugan’s work brings to light a modern take on a vanishing way of life by painting his subjects in still moments that seem frozen in time and simultaneously express a quiet tension.

For this exhibition, the epic poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge between 1797-1799, was a key source of inspiration.

Joel Dugan’s work was featured in the “Complicit” exhibition of the University of Virginia Art Museum in 2006 and his work has been on view at many group shows across the United States. He received his B.F.A. in 2003 from San Francisco Academy of Art University. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. This is his first solo show in San Francisco.

Joel Dugan, Ocea, will be on view during regular gallery hours, 12-7 pm, Tuesday – Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday.

White Walls Gallery 835 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94109. For more information contact the gallery at: (415) 931 1500 or Andres@whitewallssf.com

For more information see: www.duganstudio.comftp