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Work of McCandless painter featured at Merrick
By Brian Knavish, Editor
For people living in the United States during The Great Depression, it was a time of intense pain and gritty resolve. It was a time of hunger and financial hardship, as well as one of relentless work ethic and eternal faith. It's those emotions that R. Jean Vallieres attempts to capture in his Great Depression-themed portraits, many of which are currently on display at the Merrick Art Gallery in New Brighton. The work of Vallieres, a highly-acclaimed McCandless artist, is being featured at The Merrick through Sunday, July 10. The exhibit includes 13 Depression-focused portraits -- four of which are newly-acquired parts of Merrick's permanent collection -- and 23 of Vallieres' landscape paintings, many depicting New York City's Central Park. The Great Depression has always been a topic of tremendous interest to Vallieres. "The objective of the Depression Era pieces is purely historical," he says. "People have to understand and connect with the history of our nation during this critical time. "In my judgment, that period helped shape American thinking." Vallieres began the Great Depression Era project in 2003. Thus far, he has completed 14 paintings and has three more in progress. When the project is completed in the spring of 2006, it will include a total of 26 paintings. The process of creating these Depression canvases is quite involved. Vallieres has scoured approximately 25,000 Depression Era pictures within the United States Library of Congress. "I look for images that I think are universally moving," he says. The pictures are three-inches-by-five-inches, so he can't always tell if they'll have the same impact in a larger portrait form, so when he comes across a picture that is particularly striking, Vallieres makes an 11-inch-by-14-inch sketch. "If I feel I can capture the expression I'm looking for in the sketch, then I'll move on to produce it on canvas," he says. Vallieres doesn't bombard the viewer with bright hues, instead creating a stark yet somber image with a limited color palette forcing "the viewer to be challenged," according to the artist. The results is figures that lure the viewer into a world of intrigue. "When people study the faces and the expressions (of the subjects), all of a sudden the impression is that the individual on the canvas is more studying you than you are studying it. "The paintings look as if they're trying to internalize and understand what you are thinking." Among these Depression Era works on display are four Vallieres portraits recently acquired by The Merrick which depict Western Pennsylvania scenes from the 1930s. "Our Forgotten Union Brother," for example, is an image of an African-American Steel-worker from Baden. Like so much of Vallieres' work, emotion and character leap off the canvas in this piece. The landscape paintings in the exhibit have a drastically different but equally moving visual impact. They are more vibrant images of New York's Central Park and attempt to allow people to view our country's most famous park in a new way. Vallieres does this by utilizing the effects of light, color, surface and perspective, aiming to capture the imagination of the viewer. "Mid-Afternoon Walk," for example, depicts a couple of dark images in the forefront strolling down a path on a crisp autumn day. A few other dark figures dot the path in the distance. But the quiet stroll of these faceless figures takes place amid a smorgasbord of colors created by the countless changing leaves. Vallieres says he created these works to compete with the late Harold Altman, who Vallieres says is one of his idols. "The purpose of art is to allow a person to reflect and associate. In that sense, art is for everyone," says Vallieres "People have a curious eye ... and art's purpose is to expose people to the absolute beauty of an image on canvas. Studying it can take you far deeper into a thought process than just a quick glance." |
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