Jack grew up in South Gardner, Massachusetts. He studied art at Mount Wachusett Community College, where he received scholarships enabling him to transfer to Pratt Institute in New York. Mr. Leamy was awarded his BFA in 1985. He traveled to the west coast, settling in San Francisco, where he has a vital studio practice and is a devoted husband and father. Recently, Jack has returned to graduate school and will be awarded his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2010. He has exhibited his work in New York, Massachusetts, and California. His paintings are visual poems dealing with myth, the metaphysics of nature and culture as they collide, and a self-reflexive investigation of the universe.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
These works carry with them an ethical vision. In a decadent and fractured global village and art world, this vision is deeply needed. Bruno Bettleheim describes this phenomenon of artistic purpose as, “True art… in a strange dialectical process unique to it-just because it stands for the deepest personal statement made universal by disciplined effort- [high art] becomes one of the greatest forces binding people together without lessening what is uniquely personal to them. Art permits them to share with others what all consider something higher.”
These images are a visceral admission of the personal and universal condition of the human creature in its present state. Alienated from while bound by more primitive natural animal callings, we are still reaching for the transcendent and sublime. The work reveals these themes through image and process. Imagery is built upon performative and improvisational gestural systems combined with highly realized figurative symbolic representation. These allegories are informed by subjective and disciplined experience that faces a dehumanizing techno/administrative era.
The technological cannot overcome or unify the unconscious with what lies beyond its understanding. De-sublimated drives are integrated aesthetically to bring the viewer into a realm of emotional redemption, unifying the unconscious with constructive spirituality. The significance of such imagery is towards imaginative transformation and the resolution of ontological frustration.
2005 Group Show, Atrium Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2006 What You See Is What You Have,
3rd Rail Studio, New Rochelle, NY
2007 Jack Leamy: MASK, Solo Exhibition, Kennedy Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008 Jack Leamy: TELESCOPE, Solo Exhibition, Mount Wachusett Community College, Gardner, MA
2009 Aurora Borealis, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
2009 Luminous Flux, Solo Exhibition, Kennedy Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 First Annual First Show, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
2009 Push The Rock, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 Solo Grouping, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 MFA Exhibition, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Group Show, Docent's Collection, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA
2010 Want to Big C my little c?, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Performology and Actionization, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Rumpelstiltskin, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Vernisage, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA
2010 In Your Face, Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA
2011 Solo Exhibition, Boxer Rebellion, Mount Wauchusett Community College, Gardner, MA