John Dowd’s Summer Show
ARTS BRIEFS
Source: PROVINCETOWN INDEPENDENT
By HOWARD KARREN
WILLIAM SCOTT GALLERY Through September 16, 2021
John Dowd’s Labor Day weekend exhibit at William Scott Gallery, 439 Commercial St. in Provincetown, has been an annual event that his followers have attended for decades, often with a frenzy of enthusiasm. His streetscape oil paintings have become emblematic of Provincetown — reproduced on posters and hung on the walls of collectors far and wide.
“It’s awfully flattering,” Dowd tells the Independent. “That said, I never really sense the reality of what people feel — it’s just like puffing you up. Who knows what other people think about your work and why they’re gravitating to it? I just keep my head down and keep doing the work. I keep exploring and trying to get better.”
Although elements of his paintings remain familiar, Dowd continues to experiment with light and shadow and his palette, as well as the where and how of what he chooses as subjects.
“The studio is my favorite place to be now,” Dowd says after an all-nighter last weekend. “I don’t know if it’s because of Covid and that it’s a safe place. I’m still interested in the work and the place, and I can’t imagine ever getting tired of it. I guess I’m doing the right thing — I like it more now than ever.”
As a longtime member and current vice chair of the Provincetown Historic District Commission — and thus partly responsible for preserving the streetscapes he paints — Dowd is wary of talking about the ways in which the town is changing, and how expensive it has become for artists to live here. “For all the doom and gloom,” he says, “I don’t know anywhere else that has as much of an arts community.”
Dowd’s new show, “Summer Work,” opens Friday, Sept. 3 and will be on view through Sept. 16. —Howard Karren
One of the new works by John Dowd in his Labor Day weekend show at William Scott Gallery, opening on Friday. (Photo courtesy John Dowd)
