Dennis Sheehan, born in Boston in 1950, paints in the Barbizon style with remarkable authority & faithful adherence to his 19th century precursors. In the tradition of the tonalist painters, Sheehan creates landscapes of mood, affected by nature's changing seasons.
The contemporary work of Dennis Sheehan reflects a great nineteenth-century-predecessor, George Inness. Like Inness, whose influence is consciously acknowledged, Sheehan employs the dark palette and thickly pigmented surfaces of the French Barbizon School. Maintaining a muted chromatic scheme, Sheehan has sensitivity to atmosphere and the subtle tonality of color. Optical truth combined with poetic resonance is fundamental to Sheehan’s goals as a painter. His work is the product of the conscious distillation of prior imagery ranging from the American Barbizon to the abstractions of Franz Kline. For all of the references to history—and there are multiple—there is no mistaking the artist’s debt to the more recent past. Without the legacy of action painting, Sheehan’s art would be less forceful and evocative than it is.
"My goal is to have the painting emanate light, rather than be just a surface that records the reflections of light. This is why the shadow areas are important; for it is from them that this emanation proceeds. The light areas are focal points of this effort, but the power comes from the shadows." ~ Dennis Sheehan