Lutin, 2001
Lutin, 2001
70x64 inches




Welta, 2001
Welta, 2001
60x72 inches




Thaw, 2001
Thaw, 2001
72x84 inches




Nevis, 2000
Nevis, 2000
68x72 inches




 Donald Feasél: Recent Paintings

Well-known San Francisco painter Donald Feasél opens a solo exhibition of recent paintings at Brian Gross Fine Art, on Thursday, January 9, with a reception for the artist from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. This exhibition features Feasél's radically new body of large abstract paintings. The show continues through February 15.

Informed by spontaneous gesture, the paintings are full of rhythmic movement and improvisational brushwork. Feasél creates lyrical compositions through the accumulation and dispersion of thinly applied paint. The pouring of the paint and the settling of the pigment yields organic shapes evocative of forms found in nature. Dominated by the vivid contrast of dark colors on raw canvas, the works are executed in a palette of black and burnt umber with tonal accents of blues, purples, reds, and yellows.

In Feasél's newest body of work, two directions of abstract painting are explored. The lyrical fullness of the composition of some paintings contrasts others that have a poetic and ascetic simplicity. Nebulous and amorphous, Nevis yields explosive moments of smokey combustion. Juxtaposing the powerful congestion of Nevis are the starkly austere Plymouth and Lutin. In these works linear forms dominate a field of negative space. Washes of translucent paint are thinly applied in vaporous tendrils, evoking an evanescent quality.

Donald Feasél is an accomplished Bay Area painter, whose abstract oil paintings have generated critical acclaim over the last ten years. Studying with Elmer Bischoff at the University of California at Berkeley, he received his MFA in 1984, and his BA from UCLA in 1976. His work has been included in numerous Bay Area exhibitions. This is his third solo exhibition with Brian Gross Fine Art.