Featured Artist Exhibition: Colin Hurley
April 15th to May 8th
Reception: April 30th
Works by this prolific expressionistic painter range in subjects from Ghandi to Marilyn to flamingos to cat paintings that make you smile. I first saw Colin’s work at ArtWorks Studios, a collective his father, Jim Hurley, formed with several local painters and his father’s violin studio. He was a young teen who had already established a big visual voice, and he’s continued to develop his work. Picking out which subjects to show amongst the hundreds he’s produced was a difficult task, but a worthy one. I hope you’ll enjoy it as well.
The exhibit allows visitors to explore several of this promising painter’s paths from frenzied brushworks to spray paint to strokes that are fluid and free. Hurley’s subjects range from a flock of flamingos to cats, Marilyn, and Ghandi, as well as a sampling of his many self-portraits.
A graduate of Granada High School and Las Positas College, Hurley found painterly voice early starting at age 15, and was the youngest member of the ArtWorks Studios collective run by his father, violinist Jim Hurley, at the Schenone Building from 1999 to 2003. Along with the other resident artists, I watched as this young man blossomed and developed, and now at 26 years of age, Colin has amassed hundreds of strong works, about 40 of which will be exhibited in this show. Although his work in the most part is the kind that makes you smile each time you see it – without being sappy, which is a difficult thing to achieve – from early on, Colin could wrestle with a dark subject and create a piece haunts the viewer for years. I know this from personal experience, as 9 years later I find myself still disturbed by one of his pieces that hung outside my studio door.
This is definitely a show to see. Don’t come expecting fussy realism – you won’t find it here. But you’ll be glad you came.
-Linda Ryan, April 2010
