Opening Reception: Friday, May 1 from 6-9 p.m.

Exhibit Dates: May 1 thru May 31, 2015

Gallery Hours: Mon. - Fri. 10 a.m.-4 p.m., weekends by appointment.

Painter Dan McCleary, who in 2010 founded Art Division, which serves young adult art students in the Rampart District of Los Angeles, has a deep feeling for human dignity. For more than 30 years McCleary has been painting models chosen from his friends and acquaintances, portraying them with equal doses of solemnity and candor.  Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times says that McCleary "is among the finest figurative painters working today."

According to the Huffington Post, McCleary is often noted as being representative of Postmodernism, a late 20th century art and architecture movement that is often skeptical in its interpretation of cultural and sociological issues of the era.  On this, he tells the Post:

"I never felt like I was an 'outsider' making figurative art. In the Bay Area, where I lived for six years in the '70s and got started, there is a great tradition of figurative art. I discovered David Hockney's work in the early '70s, and it had a huge impact on my work. I also liked the paintings of Eric Fischl and Alfred Leslie. I never felt I was an odd man out. John Sonsini and I talk to almost daily, and I also keep in close contact with John Nava. I was also very close with Mark Stock, who recently passed away. I have always felt like I had a community of like-minded artists."