Dan McDermott | Second Focus

Alon Zakaim Fine Art has the pleasure of hosting Second Focus, an exhibition of oil paintings by Dan McDermott. Returning to Cork Street with his second solo exhibition of photorealist work, McDermott's latest collection breathes new life into scenes and figures from decades past.

Born of a childhood fascination with the glamour of adult life captured in movies and film, McDermott's work is directed by his attraction to the reproduced image. Drawing upon archives of photographic stills collected from film, internet, television and documentary footage from the 1940s to the present, McDermott reintroduces the subjects of these stills to the contemporary eye. Second Focus takes us on a journey from the nostalgic familiarity of McDermott's urban streets and into the rooms, lives and minds of his subjects. Captivated by the individual moment, McDermott seeks to generate a narrative in each image irrespective of its original context. Instead the artist focuses on fleeting moments; a glance, a beam of light or a passing figure and in monumentalizing seemingly meaningless seconds McDermott saves them from being swallowed by the succeeding frame and renders them timeless.

McDermott's works are characterised by atypical angles and a unique use of cropping. Employing an increasingly adventurous palette in these latest works, the colours are applied gradually from dark to light before the artists employs his distinctive blurring effect that plays with variations of light. These brilliantly vibrant canvases shimmer and flicker in the manner of the screens from where their subjects came.

Dan McDermott has exhibited extensively throughout Britain and abroad since graduating from the University of Northumbria in 1995. Most recently he has been involved in a number of solo and group exhibitions in London and New York, including shows held at the Northcote Gallery, London, The Clapham Gallery, London and The Silas Marder Gallery, New York.