The eleven works on view in our presentation date from 2014 to 2026.  Four are a part of a group of works recently completed by the Artist on a small, intimate scale.  Mr. Massad describes his shift to focus on “little jewels” as occurring in 2022, when he began a series to describe natural objects as a botanist might approach them, investigating them closely with scientific precision. He describes the “technical tests” in each work, to fully represent in pastel the intricacies of an empty grape stem or a stone’s “delicate parallel striations”.  Everyday objects weathered by time inspired further attention to detail, such as the “radiant nacreous skin of (an) ancient bottle.”

This awareness of the magic and beauty in the natural world began from a young age, as Massad writes, “I must have been seven or eight when I noticed, with awe, the green fingers of the daffodils near our front door breaking through the surface of central Oklahoma’s clay-rich soil, hard as earthenware under the bright sun of early spring. It looked like magic, as if Great Nature were a wizard pulling flowers out of her sleeve.”

Massad’s sensitive and sensuous pastel works recall the symbolism of 17th century Dutch still-life vanitas paintings, or those of the ancient Greek painter Zeuxis, where objects are permeated with a subtle sense of memento mori. To gaze upon them, one is reminded of the fragility of all life, but also its poetic beauty.  Filled with symbols that serve as metaphors for life’s connections, junctions and unanticipated events, Massad’s works are simultaneously deeply personal and universal.

Works by G. Daniel Massad are included in many public collections, including The Art Institute of Chicago, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Philbrook Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  A retrospective for G. Daniel Massad was presented in 2018 at the Palmer Museum of Art at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park, PA, accompanied by a 215 page catalogue, A Small Radius of Light: G. Daniel Massad, A Retrospective.  The artist was also recently included in the 2019-20 exhibition, The Touch of Color, featuring pastels in the permanent collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.