Gallery 1261 | 2/12-3/12 | Denver, CO

Triple Vision

A new show featuring the Dan, Danny and John McCaw opens at Gallery 1261 on February 12.

The Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) wrote, “An educated person’s ideas of Art are drawn naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real perfection depends.”Dan McCaw, Waiting, oil on board, 30 x 24"The contemporary impressionist Dan McCaw often talks about “the purple tree” that a creative youngster might paint in an art class. His classmate painted a tree with a brown trunk and green leaves, earning the teacher’s praise. The artist of the purple tree, feeling the need to be validated and to fit in, adjusted his vision to meet the expectations of others.

Dan rendered what he saw in front of him when he was younger but began to turn to intuition and feeling, opening his heart. “My background is traditional,” he explains. “When my sons started painting, I broadened my perspective and began exploring something deeper. That allowed contact with the subconscious. I knew there was something more to be expressed.”John McCaw, Through it All, mixed media on canvas, 24 x 18"His sons, John McCaw and Danny McCaw, work beside him in their large California studio, each on his own personal pursuit and each expressing his unique self—John spontaneously assembles non-figurative images with a variety of materials from fabric to sticks, and Danny blends figuration and abstraction in his imagery, adjusting the surface of his paintings by sanding, scraping and otherwise manipulating the layers of paint.

Danny says, “I’ve always been the daydreamer and art gave me a place to express myself.” As he, his father and brother delve more into themselves, each other and the broad human condition, their understanding and their art continue to evolve.Danny McCaw, Reflections, oil on board, 48 x 48"John sees the process of making art as a way of “finding out who you are.” He says, “Often times my paintings suggest universal themes such as life and death, fate and circumstance, joy and sadness, human relationships, religion, graphic symbols and modern culture. These themes can be interpreted on many different levels. Whether it’s an emotional connection or a visual attraction, I endeavor to create an art that most accurately represents the purity of a unique experience. Art is the external expression of an internal emotion.”