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Paul Mahder Gallery: David Holmes - Progress and the Loss of Cultural Symbols.

Review by Dennis C. Scherzer: Elegant and unpretentious, formal and relaxed, Paul Mahder has created a gallery that has a mind and heart for uniquely expressive original art. The space has depth, light, and mini-galleries for specialized exhibits.

Other galleries are often jammed with works to the point that it's impossible to experience them individually. Many are geared solely to what the gallery owner thinks/guesses that patrons might want to buy. Paul Mahder uses his gallery to introduce new and unique artists to collectors rather than simply supply them with "art."

Paul Mahder is a remarkable photographic artist (and an exhibitor in his gallery). He searches for artists with high levels of technical skill, unique voice, and passion. The gallery exudes passion, the necessary passion that an exhibitor needs to provide for an artist. This passion is the body and soul of the symbiosis between artist and gallery. Without it, a gallery owner is a mere shopkeeper.

Mahder tells me that, "The best artists are prophetsŠ.are able to say something to society that is meaningful." So what does he see in David Holmes?

Holmes photographs the cultural landscape, then hand paints the images in realistic detail. He artistically documents the assemblage of cultural artifacts that create the ever-changing palimpsest of the urban environment. He captures familiar images, such as Woerner's Smoke Shop in the San Francisco Tenderloin ("Woerner's") and a moving glimpse of Manhattan ("Broadway Hustle"). Each piece is an eyewitness view of an urban scene.

Holmes writes, "I am fascinated by the beauty which surrounds us yet goes unnoticed; gritty sidewalks half hidden in shadow, walls of crackled paint and the weathered lettering of old signs." He also includes people in his scenes for the purpose of "lending life and vitality." This inclusion creates "uniqueness" in that, it's "a departure from typical modern realism, which tends to depict urban settings as lonely places, strangely unpopulated. The style is rooted in the classical school of representational art."

Comment by AB: Progress takes its toll, assailing the landscape and replacing what God hath wrought with nothing but reasons to buy worthless mass-produced crap that we don't need and will likely never use... except maybe the liquor and tobacco.