Jack Reilly Abstract Paintings

Painting on Sculpted Canvas. An abstract illusionist work by artist Jack Reilly. After receiving his MFA from Florida State University, in 1978 Jack Re...

Jack Reilly Harmonization of Conflicting Thought Processes, 2025 Mixed media 30 x 45 in (76.2 x 114.3 cm)

Painting on stretched canvas over sculpted stretcher bars, constructed by the artist. The work has been painted to give the illusion that it is a raised cube when in fact it is a 2-dimensional shaped canvas. Multiple acrylic paints and acrylic pigments have been used in each 'Stripe' of this work. Many are semi transparent or metallic pigments, causing a nice nuance in color depending on the lighting of the work. After receiving his MFA from Florida State University, in 1978 Jack Reilly moved to Los Angeles. His paintings were soon discovered by prominent Los Angeles art dealer Molly Barns, who offered him a solo exhibition with her gallery. Donald Brewer, curator of the Fisher Museum at the University of Southern California, introduced Reilly’s paintings in 1979 in a major museum exhibition entitled The Reality of Illusion, which opened at the Denver Art Museum and traveled for two years to the Oakland Museum, USC Fisher Museum, Johnson Museum at Cornell, Honolulu Academy of Arts, among other institutions nationwide. This series of museum exhibitions, along with numerous solo shows and reviews, established Reilly as one of the original artists of the Abstract illusionism painting movement. In 1979 Reilly received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant. Although he is best known for his abstract paintings on shaped canvas, he also works in representational imagery and mixed-media. By the early 1980s, Reilly's paintings were represented by galleries in major American cities including the Molly Barnes Gallery in Los Angeles, Aaron Berman Gallery in New York, Foster Goldstrom Fine Arts in San Francisco, Marilyn Butler gallery in Scottsdale and numerous others. Articles and reviews on Reilly's paintings were subsequently published in Arts Magazine, Art Week, the Los Angeles Times, New York Artworld, and in books including American Art Now by noted author and art critic Edward Lucie-Smith, and Inside the L.A. Artist by Marva Marrow. Such notable collectors of the era, including Fred and Marcia Weisman, Steve Martin...