The Poetics of Light

Jon Doran brings his latest exhibition, The Poetics of Light, to Abend Gallery in Denver's Golden Triangle Museum District, running from October 16 through October 31. The show opens with a reception on Friday, October 16, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

Doran is a UK-based artist who grew up outside London and later moved to Cornwall, drawn by its light and wild seas. He studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art and classical realism at the Florence Academy of Art, and he now teaches at the Newlyn School of Art, where he lives with his wife and three daughters. His oil paintings draw on the Cornish landscape, still life, and figurative forms, all built on a classical foundation in drawing and a considered use of color, tone, and the poetics of light.

What sets his work apart is a style he calls 'disrupted realism.' Up close, you'll see scrapes, dashes, and swipes of paint—the kind of marks that look like an unfinished sketch or a series of loose gestures. But as you step back, those same marks resolve into a coherent whole. It's the kind of thing that rewards you for looking twice: once to see the image, and once to see how it was put together.

Abend Gallery has been a family-run space in the Golden Triangle since 1990, and The Poetics of Light will be on view there from October 16 to October 31, with the opening reception on Friday, October 16, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. The gallery is at 1261 Delaware St, Denver, CO 80204.