About Terence Donovan
Terence Donovan is a realist painter living and working in the beautiful Hudson River
Valley, in New York State. His awards include a National Endowment of the Arts
Painting Award and a New Jersey Council for the Arts Fellowship, and he has exhibited
at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, NY ,NY. His work is included in various
private and corporate collections.
A Collector's Comments
"I find Mr. Donovan's paintings to be much more than landscapes. They
prompt intense feelings and pique the viewer's own memories. His
Garrison paintings speak to me most deeply, so I would like to comment
on them in particular.
For me, each painting is really about an emotion or set of feelings. For
example, "Old Albany Post Road," sings about the lushness of summer,
the enorrmity of possibilities in youth or in a journey. Its use of light is
technically impressive; it seems that the painting could light up the room
on its own. But the effect goes beyond great craft. The viewer feels a
yearning to follow the earthly light, imagines walking down this road in
the painting, and contemplates the human need to feel connected to a
divine light and to feel that our paths, however prosaic, are divinely
directed...
...Many other painters successfully use landscape composition to depict
emotional forces, and perhaps a comparison to Edward Hopper is the
most obvious, but there are two things about Mr. Donovan's work that I
find unusual. The first is that his compositions are photographic. That is
to say, rather than tinker with the lines and proportions in a real scene for
greater effect, Mr. Donovan paints scenes as they really are, but
chooses his frames and lighting as a photographer does...
...The second is the seeming paradox between the gentleness of the
paintings and their staying power in the viewer's mind. Mr. Donovan's
work never has to shock in order to push the viewer to thoughts and
feelings beyond the usual, and they "haunt" one without being
sensationalist. There is an unabashed beauty in his paintings which is
never sentimental or superficial, and which coexists with the darker
aspects without tension.
I feel that Mr. Donovan's work is moving and thought-provoking, and
accessible. Visitors to our house, whatever their background or art
tastes, never fail to comment and often at great length on one of Mr.
Donovan's paintings hanging in our hall. His current work seems to bring
together many of his earlier directions, and I find his Garrison series the
most moving and eloquent in his body of work."
-Carson Gleberman