Introduction.
Stephen Namara is a contemporary artist, currently living and working in San Francisco, California.He is of dual American and African nationalities. Like many of his peers, he arrived in San Francisco during the latter half of the 1970s as a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. In an exhibiting career spanning over forty years Namara has held regular solo exhibitions around the United States since the early 1980s. Early on he exhibited with Haines Gallery, later on with Dolby Chadwick Gallery, both in San Francisco. Koplin Gallery in Los Angeles and more recently with Andra Norris Gallery in Burlingame, California. The portrait, the still-life and the realization of specific spaces have been enduring concerns throughout his career. Although his subjects are intrinsically recognisable, they are also chosen for their abstract qualities. A minimalist approach, pure lines and a richness in color makes his works immensely contemplative. Carefully chosen and presented in a setting devoid of clutter, they are given breathing space. They vibrate with stillness, evoking a sensation of peace and serenity. Inviting a narrative and an attachment between viewer and painting.
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In his most recent exhibition of portrait paintings and drawings, he has revisited the self-portrait as a primary theme, not only to evoke a narrative within the viewer's imagination but also as a means of exploring significant social and political issues utilizing the expressive power of painting and drawing.
Namara is still making changes in his use of dry pigments to create still-life and non-figurative drawings, each a unique composition with a strong minimalist focus on form and color. His concerns here being: time, color,illusion,pattern and scale. His exhibition at the Richmond Art Center( "Pause ,Gap, Omission") in 2019, was fascinating as it was pertinent, notably in the use of dry pigments in abstraction but also in the continuing impetus of abstraction . A sequential process that allows us to see a side of the painter's visual language that his figurative paintings do not show. Namara's work is represented in a range of collections.