SOMA NewArt GALLERY

Sam Donovanhas had paint on his clothes, in his hair, on his hands for the better part of 35 years. Sam learned his skills in the years before computer generated graphics by hand-painting the billboards that line the roadways of South Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, Sam hand painted huge liquor ads and Marlboro Men.

Sam's painting grew to include large scale murals for homes and businesses with subjects as diverse as can be imagined: from a 400 square foot Tasty Cake painting at their Philadelphia factory, an 1100 Square foot Mural at Cumberland Casualty Insurance Headquarters to a 600 square foot mural for Rutgers University and several monster murals on the streets of Philadelphia.

Now Sam turns his attention to the things he loves, the outdoors, the dairy farms, the rural landscapes he grew up with, he paints these things to please himself but hopes that you enjoy them too.

Samuel Donovan – Artist Statement

As a young boy, Summer Wednesday's were special; I'd spend the night at my grandparents where my grand father would wake me at 4AM for a breakfast of shredded wheat, half a grapefruit and toast with strawberry jam (for the thirty years I knew him, that was breakfast). We'd then load our fishing poles into the back of his 1954 Chevybusiness coup and set out on an hour drive to Matt's Landing on the Eastern bank of the Maurice River. There we boarded the fishing boat "Sweet Heart" for a day of fishing on The Delaware Bay. The fishing was wonderful but what I remember most, was that long slow ride down the river on the way to the bay. Past the the old grey oyster processing houses of Shell Pile and Bivalve with the oyster dredging boats tied to their docks. Most of that industry, the docks, the buildings, the boats and the rough necked characters that populated them are gone now, remaining only in the childhood memories of old men.

 PREVIOUS EXHIBIT - 2011