STUART LUKE GATHERER
	FOREWORD Scottish-born artist Stuart Luke Gatherer is a fascinating blend of traditionalist and provocateur. He has chosen to be an artist whose technique is steeped in the time-honored traditions of classical painting. His application and build-up of paint, along with his superb use of light and shadow, owe more than a nod to the 17th Century Dutch masters. Unabashedly committed to these academic precepts of the past, he employs his exceptional level of skill to jettison us into the present, speaking with a wholly contemporary voice that unquestionably belongs to the here and now. His canvases are peopled with young energetic urbanites. Smartly dressed and coifed, there is no doubt that these are the artist's contemporaries. This is the world he inhabits and he knows its denizens well. He explores their moods and personalities in intimate, single figure paintings and addresses their interactions as a group or social-subculture in his very ambitious, multi-figure compositions. Gatherer chooses not to paint the genre scenes of everyday life but rather of a heightened reality - events that suggest a multi-layered story with overtones of intrigue and mystery. At times, the artist's focus appears to be more about who his people are than what is happening around them. He presents a seemingly direct tale in "The Street" in which we see a group of friends visiting a fair or carnival in the evening. A more obscure narrative emerges however, when through their facial expressions, we try to identify the relationships between this group of revelers, particularly taking note of the last man's furtive glance... the fifth wheel perhaps, as he lags behind the group. Yet, in a work like "The End of the Affair" we know we are witnessing an episode, an occurrence out of the ordinary and also out of our sight. We see the shadow of a figure on the wall who we assume is the instigator of the action, yet we, like the other subjects in the painting are observers, as if watching a play unfold. Their body language seems to deny the drama in front of them. In previous exhibitions, Gatherer has been known to visit great masterworks of the past for inspiration. One cannot help but find comparisons in his "The Arrest" to Caravaggio's "The Taking of Christ." Whether or not a deliberate reference by the artist, it is intriguing to uncover the "clues" that link the two works. The draping of the red cloth over the "suspect", the lantern turned into a flashlight, the man in black armor transformed into a black man. Yet, the inclusion of the young woman and her dog jolts us into the present and the accusations in this scenario are entirely unknown. In all of Gatherer's paintings there is immediacy, ambiguity and promise. These qualities, which emerge from his slick surfaces, rich colors and deep shadows bring to the work an almost film noir quality - each painting a short still that has been captured for us to ponder and analyze. They are at once active and passive, traditional and cutting-edge. Stuart Luke Gatherer embodies what we are looking for in the new realists, an artist who while incorporating the best of the past leaps into the future with insight and courage.
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