Artist Statement:
My work is a crisis, a visual rebellion against realistic narrative and the dissonant nature of existence. Inarticulate emotions, expressed in abstract patterns, rhythms, and forms, penetrate beyond the confines of the classically represented figure. The act of painting, for me, is a physical, visceral experience; paint clotted, smeared, wiped off, and applied with rags and my fingers over charcoal, graphite pencil drawings. My process is a chaotic, destructive hungry search for a formal resolution that remains open to the flux of discovery. Every mark is a beginning and every mark is an ending. The fragmented unfinished nature of my work evokes a sense of both loss, and continuation: life amidst death.
Awards & Distinctions:
2012 Artistic Merit Scholarship, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2011 Artistic Merit Scholarship, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2011 1st Place Juried Exhibition, Small Worlds Show,
The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA
2010 Artistic Merit Scholarship, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2010 2nd Place Juried Exhibition, Models as Artists, The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA
Exhibitions:
2014
- Small Worlds Show, The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA
2013
- Dialogues and Correspondence, The Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2013
- 112th Annual Student Exhibition. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2011
- New Members Show, The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA
- Small Worlds Show, The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA
2010
- Self Portrait Juried Exhibition, Gallery 128 at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
- Déjà vu Juried Exhibition, Off the Wall Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
- Rejected Exhibition, Gallery 8 at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
- Juried Exhibition, Gallery 8, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
- Mid Summer Invitational, Off the Wall Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
- Models as Artists, The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA
- Workshop Show, The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA
- An Offering on Camac, Off the Wall Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
- Black And White, The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA
- Identity 5TH Annual Community Juried Show, Off the Wall Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2009
- Exhibited Works by Don McPartland*, Gleaner’s Cafe, Philadelphia, PA
- Don McPartland at Cafe Grindstone*, Cafe Grindstone, Philadelphia, PA
Don McPartland & Matt Green, 10TH St. Laundromat, Philadelphia, PA
