Acclaimed glass artist and son have joint show
In their first joint exhibit, father and son artists Dan and Owen Dailey have brought their imaginative, vibrantlycolored works to Hawk Galleries.
Dan Dailey, 73, an acclaimed glass artist with works in dozens of international museums, has used the vase as a form of expression for more than 45 years. Owen Dailey, 37, is a painter and a sculptor whose sunny works reflect the several years he lived in the Caribbean. Their combined exhibit of about 30 pieces can be seen through Dec. 31 in person at the Downtown gallery or online at the gallery website hawkgalleries.com.
Dan Dailey, who lives and works in New Hampshire, has a seemingly endless font of ideas in recreating the classical vase which, he said in a video, has “endured changes over millennia and remains a compelling part of artistic expression.”
Most of his vases are made of blown glass that is sand blasted, polished with acid and then fired. For Dan Dailey, vases are canvases for his drawings.
The amber-colored “Greeting” and the green “Falling Sky” each have a male figure on one side and a female figure on the other. On the urn-shaped, orangeand-purple “Raining Jungle Man,” jungle scenes circle the vase and claw-like orange appendages are found at the top.
Inspired by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, Dailey created a circus series of vases full of whimsy. “Color Moon” is a gold vase punctuated with horizontal blue lines and with handles made of two stainless steel acrobats with turquoise moon faces. The piece is at once humorous and elegant.
Less ornate in design are vases reflecting urban skyscrapers, including “Art Deco Building 1,” “Art Deco Building 2” and “New York 2,” a beautiful, Vshaped vase — gold at the bottom morphing into mauve at the top, and adorned with famous Big Apple structures including the Chrysler Building.
If a look at New York is not enough for those eager to get away in pandemic
times, Owen Dailey offers the warm winds of the Caribbean with his bright paintings rich in shades of orange, yellow, green, blue and rose.
“Lagoon Through Vines,” which can be seen through the gallery’s front window, is a gouache on Fabriano board painting of a nude woman, her back to the viewer, standing in aquamarine water before a yellow, sun-kissed sky.
Echoing these warm colors and sense of place are Owen Dailey’s “Spring Flowers,” “In Her View,” “Choose One” and additional works.
In his artist’s statement, Owen Dailey describes the impact of these hues. He writes, “I rely on the language of color and the feeling a color can provide. Consciously or unconsciously, the colors and their layered effects can elicit a feeling from the person who takes a moment to live in the space created by my painting.”
Owen Dailey, who lives in Rhode Island, also creates sculpture, including the geometric works in his “Tetrahedron” series and “Suns in Waves,” a wall sculpture of crystal frit (ground up and sifted glass) that forms a shiny, abstract scene of sharp blue waves accented with semi-circular gold suns.
While the Daileys’ works are completely different, they pair well together and fill the gallery with energy. And Dan Dailey’s works, so varied and accomplished, will make viewers wish time to pass more quickly to the spring of 2023, when he has a solo show scheduled at the Columbus Museum of Art.
negilson@gmail.com