HUTSON GALLERY September 16 – 25, 2011

 

Manhattan , 2.5” x 3.5” John O’Shea

Saturday and Sunday, September 24 and 25 from 11 to 5:00 pm

Hutson Gallery, 508-487-0915

Mary Feeley, Director - hutsongallery@gmail.com

http://www.hutsongallery.net/

Hutson Gallery is pleased to announce, in conjunction with Provincetown's 10 Days of Art ~ Celebrating America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony, an exhibition and demonstration of ACEO, a variation of artist trading cards by Provincetown artist John O'Shea.

Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are miniature works of art about the size of a modern baseball card that were originally traded or exchanged among artists. A variation of ATC is ACEO (Art Cards, Editions and Originals) developed when art cards were sold to the general public. The ACEO website, http://www.art-cards.org, provides an interesting history of the ATC. ACEOs have one main rule: they must be 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches - the size of a trading card. ACEOs are sold as originals or editions and can be created in any medium.

Provincetown artist John O'Shea has been creating and selling ACEOs for many years on EBay and at Provincia Gifts, located at 140 Commercial Street, which he founded in 1997 with Manuel A. Sousa.

John’s art covers a wide range of subjects, media and sizes but he will be exhibiting his ACEO portfolio during the 10 Days of Art. In addition, John will demonstrate how he creates the cards. He combines eye-catching colors and textures in his abstract and figurative paintings all adding to his intriguing and sometimes mystical creations. “My work is a reflection of my inner thoughts, happy memories, successes, regrets and dreams. My art is my music. It progresses, moves forward…and the last piece is always a departure point to a new creation that reflects my eager to experiment while venturing into new territories”. And it is this eagerness to experiment that led John to creating ACEOs.

John O'Shea was born in New York City in 1959. He moved to Ireland when he was 3 years old and only returned to the US when he was 19. John began painting when he was 10 and began to really develop his artistic abilities when he moved to New York City, Provincetown, MA and Évora, Portugal. It was in Évora that most of his work was developed and admired in view of the time spent in the Alentejo especially during the last 10 years.