Tim O’Kane

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Tim O’Kane was born in Richmond in 1950. Many of his pieces are still-life oil paintings on wooden panels portrayed through lifelike imagery of everyday objects and materials.

Born 1950 Richmond, VA

Education

1972

BFA Painting and Printmaking, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2021
New Work/Summer Exhibition / Online Exhibition

2020
The Light of Italy / Online Exhibition
55 Year Retrospective / Online Exhibition

2018
Five Decades / A Devotion To Realism (50 Year Retrospective), The Charles H. Taylor Arts Center, Hampton, VA
One Intention in a Troubled World (From The Dream Series), Chroma Projects, Charlottesville, VA

2015
Retrospective & Recent Work, Haley Fine Art, Sperryville, VA

2014
Recent Still Life and Selected Works From the Dream Series “Naxos,” Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2014
Naxos, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2012
The Observed World or A Right Handed Painter, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2011
State of the Arts in Virginia, Invitational Exhibition of the DC offices of Senator Mark Warner
NAXOS, Piedmont Virginia Community

2007
The Observed World of Right-Handed Painter
Time Enough (Angelo’s / C&O – Charlottesville venues)

2005
Italian Miniatures, McGuffey Arts Center, Charlottesville, VA

2000
The Hours Trilogy and Island Suite, McGuffey Arts Center, Charlottesville, VA

1998
Tim O’Kane/Time Enough, Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA

1994
Tim O’Kane, Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, S.C

1989
Selected Drawings, Piedmont VA Community College, Charlottesville, VA
Time O’Kane Works on Paper Peninsula Fine Arts Center

Selected Group Exhibitions

2022
Homeward Bound / Triannual Juried Exhibition, The Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA

2017
Homeward Bound / Triannual Juried Exhibition, The Taubman Museum Of Art, Roanoke, VA
Small Works – 1st Place Award The Charles H. Taylor Arts Center, Hampton, VA

2016
Virginia Artists 2016 Juried Exhibition, The Charles H. Taylor Arts Center, Hampton, Va.
The Artist’s Studio, The Charles H. Taylor Arts Center, Hampton, VA

2015
Beyond Real: Still Life in the 21st Century, Center for the Arts, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Gallery Artists, Haley Fine Art, Sperryvile, VA

2013
River Inn, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2012
Who We Are, Present And Past, 50th Anniversary Exhibition, Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport New, VA
Haze, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2011
State Of The Arts In Virginia, The Capitol Offices Of Senator Mark Warner, Washington, DC

2010
Summer Solstice, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2009
UnPainting, Greenville County Musuem of Art, Greenville, SC
13th Annual Boston Fine Arts Show, Boston, MA (Fraser Gallery)
Summer Introduction Exhibition, Hidell Brooks Gallery, Charlotte, NC
Vitamin C, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
Affordable Art Fair, New York, NY
The Fraser Gallery, Bethesda, MD

2008
Bridge Art Fair, Miami / Basel, The Fraser Gallery, Miami, FL
The Fraser Gallery, Bethesda, MD
Warm Springs Gallery, Warm Springs, VA
Small Claims, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2007
The Butler Institue of American Art National Juried Exhibition, Youngstown, Ohio
Gallery Henoch, New York
Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2006
Gallery Henoch, New York, NY

2005
Gallery Henoch, New York, NY
Art of the 20th Century, New York, NY

2003
30 Years Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA

2002
Realism/Regional Les Yeux de Monde, Charlottesville, VA

2000
New American Paintings, Juror: Howard Fox, Open Studios Press, Boston, Ma, Catalog #27

1999
New American Paintings, Juror: Linda Norden, Open Studios Press, Catalog #21

1998
Artsites 98, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD, Catalog: Washington
Commonwealth Collects, Contemporary Art Center of VA, Virginia Beach, VA

1996
Hollis Taggarat Galleries, New York, NY

1993
Art Museum of the Americas, Off the Mall: Inside Washington’s Foremost Art Galleries OAS, Washington D.C
Past and Present: The American Tradition of Still Life Painting, Adams Davidson Galleries, Washington, D.C

1991
Juried Exhibition, Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Juror: Tom Armstrong

1990
Intimate and Visionary: 200 Years of American Master Drawings 1790-1990 Adams Davidson Galleries
Drawing the Link, Fendrick Gallery, Washington, D.C

1989
Small Formatt Works (20th Anniversary Exhibition), Fendrick Gallery

1988
The Figure, Peninsula Fine Arts Center

1987
3 Realists from the Fredrick Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Virginia Beach Fine Arts Center, VA Beach, VA
Juried Exhibition, Peninsula Fine Arts Center

Public Collections

Bicentennial Painting/Laying of the Cornerstone, Colonnade Club, Pavilion 7, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Dominion Energy, Richmond, VA
ER Carpenter Co., Richmond, VA
Equitable Insurance Corporation, Columbus, OH
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, S.C.
McGuireWoods, Richmond, VA
Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, Monticello, Charlottesville, VA
University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville, VA
University of Virginia Emily Couric Cancer Center, Charlottesville, VA

Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

2011
Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship for Works on Paper

2006-07
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship

1999-00
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship

1997-98
Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Grant

1992-93
Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Grant

1991
Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, Va
Drawing Award (Juror: Tom Armstrong)

1989-90
University of Virginia Center for the Liberal Arts, Study in Italy Grant
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.

1987
Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Friends of the Center Award and
Drawing Award (Juror: Ned Rifkin)

1991-92
Museum of Fine Arts / VA Commission for the Arts Professional Fellowship

1980-81 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship

I painted my first still-life in 1990, twenty-five years into my career, setting up simple domestic objects on my kitchen table. From the start, I chose the minimalist approach and have stayed with it ever since. During the last decade, I have made a concerted effort to develop still-life into a major subject area for my work. I am currently exploring two distinct directions. One involves direct observation and the sensuality of objects. The second considers how referential and narrative themes can be suggested by the way in which objects are selected and arranged.

Over the years, I’ve orchestrated complex arrangements with my figurative work, not unlike a film director, yet setting them within the real world, the world of every day life. Still-life has always played some essential role in this work. It was not such a big leap to then focus solely on objects. Through my large, cinematic figurative pieces from the 80s and 90s, I had come to realize the potential of ordinary objects; the enigmatic qualities of existence contained in the mundane. This is what Cezanne and Morandi had grappled with; what brings such an air of dignity to their simple subjects and the largeness we feel in them.

The tradition of still-life is almost as old as the art of painting itself. The factors that artists manage in working within its precepts are the fundamental elements of painting; shape, texture, color, design, spatial reference, and the sensuality of surface. The object observed and closely scrutinized in the clarity of daylight becomes the painter’s attachment with the real world. It will always be considered a traditional approach to making art, but it can take place in respect of modernity. It does not have to be in opposition to it. Tradition can be retained while still speaking to our time, our current experience. I believe the art of still-life is still as viable as ever. It affords the artist a compelling balance between geometry and the illusion of representational painting and offers an endless world of possibilities for distilling a contemplative order from the noisy chaos of the world.

Within my definition of “Still-Life” is the quality of stabilizing that, which is ever moving and becoming my past. And so, the objects are collected and arranged, illuminated by the light of my studio window. The drawing is made, the colors gradually applied, tonalities adjusted toward warmth or coolness, details articulated, many seen only after extended observation. Days go by, weeks sometimes before it is done. In that time, it has become both an illusion and an actual thing, an object – both a recollection and an experience in the present.