NEW YORK, NY.- Bernarducci Meisel Gallery opened a solo exhibition for artist G. Daniel Massad featuring over a dozen recent pastel paintings. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the Gallery. The pastel paintings are still-lifes of everyday objects over dark backgrounds. These realist compositions, usually sparse, rely strongly on mathematics and geometry.

Line (2011) is almost a perfect square. Measuring 24 ½ x 24 inches, the negative space of this composition perfectly maintains the golden ratio; thought to be the ideal proportion by many ancient civilizations. Set on a black background, Line depicts a wooden fence post outside the artist’s house. On it rests some fruit, small bricks, an empty thin glass vessel, and some stones. The industrial elements of the fence include a steel spike coming out the top and a wire that runs from post to post. We only see one post in the center of the painting. Just like we do not see the other post we do not immediately know the significance of each of the objects that artist depicts. However, they each have their own iconography just like the delicately rendered marks along the fence post. The iconological program of these works is private for the artist. It is unknown what the signifiers are until you ask the artist. Otherwise, the subtle complexity of these still-lives will have to do the trick.

G. Daniel Massad lives and works in Annvile, PA. The Oklahoma City native holds a BA from Princeton University, and MA in English from the University of Chicago, and an MFA from the University of Kansas. His work is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Milwakee Art Museum and many other notable public and private collections. This exhibition is accompanied with a full color catalogue featuring an essay by David R. Brigham, Ph.D. the President and CEO of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.