SOMA NewArt GALLERY

Sam Donovan has had paint on his clothes, in his hair, on his hands for the better part of 35 years.  Sam learned his hard earned skills from the men who hand painted the billboards that lined the roadways of South Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, in the years before computer generated graphics. Sam moved on from the huge hand- painted liquor ads and Marlboro Men, to murals, still outside, (sometimes 150 feet in the air) still huge, still hand painted.

Donovan's work grew to include interior 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 to local pizzerias, from 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.

In this exhibit at SOMA, Donovan turns his attention and extensive talent to the things he loves, watercolor paintings of the outdoors, the dairy farms, the rural landscapes and seascapes he grew up with.