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The Triumph of Bacchus by Noah Buchanan, Oil on Linen, 62X80
 
MYTH AND MELANCHOLIA 
 
NOAH BUCHANAN 
 
Solo Exhibition 
November 5 - 25, 2018 
 
Opening Reception
Thursday, November 8, 6:00 - 9:00pm
 
Meet the Artist at Opening Reception
Artist Talk at 7:30pm 
 
 

Dacia Gallery presents Myth and Melancholia, recent paintings by Noah Buchanan. Early stories of myth and cosmology were a stark shaft of light through the darkness in a cold, primordial existence: Their warming, life-affirming messages told us that we not alone. In Noah Buchanan's work we find a painter who is driven to paint by that idea. His vision, built on myth and biblical narrative, is painted in light-centric traditions shaped by Caravaggio, Ribera, Velazquez, and Zurburan. In Buchanan’s work we find a contemporary renewal of these sensibilities with haunting and beautiful results. His oil paintings deliver dream-like interpretations that light is emblematic of the sublime and divine, while shadow stands as the cold aloneness of humanity. The mythic narratives at work in Buchanan’s world remind us that we are simultaneously vulnerable and powerful.

 
ARTIST STATEMENT
 

I am primarily interested in depicting the human figure as an anatomical event, which houses the spirit of the human condition, and its relationship to our cosmological and mythic origins. Poignant for me is the idea that light within a painting represents the higher self, the divine essence of our human nature; the best that the human condition can offer. The shadow is equally compelling: In the work of my heroes, the shadow is dark, transparent, lacking information and color; a void. It is the Jungian shadow-self, the unknown lurking in our subconscious. My commitment to the use of light and shadow in this way is an emblem of the divine meeting and confronting mortal humanity, and ultimately suggests that in the light we are not alone, while in the shadow - perhaps we are.

 
ARTIST BIO 
 

Noah Buchanan: (b. 1976) began his artistic studies in 1994 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he studied classical drawing and painting, as well as extensive studies in human anatomy. In 2002, he received a Masters of Fine Arts from the New York Academy of Art where he intensified his training in figure painting and anatomy with Martha Mayer Erlebacher and Steven Assael. Noah Buchanan is represented by Dacia Gallery in New York, as well as Winfield Gallery in Carmel, CA. He has participated in exhibitions across the United States from New York to Los Angeles. Buchanan has exhibited internationally in London, Edinburgh, and Tokyo. His paintings and drawings are featured in private and public collections throughout the United States and Europe. Buchanan teaches painting and drawing at several colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area, and resides in Santa Cruz, California.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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