Gallery Hours Sundays 1-6 & by appt info@lastprojects.org Last Projects is pleased to present “Seen from Behind,” paintings by Patrick Donovan, his second solo show with the gallery. These paintings mine the thoughts and emotions we experience in everyday life evoked by observing people seen from behind. They urge us to reflect on the looker in all of us. The artist explains: “A few years ago, a former gallery owner visiting my studio commented “seen from behind” about one of my then-paintings. I later remembered it and thought it might be interesting to do a series of paintings of persons seen from behind. These paintings are about the everyday experience of looking at people unobserved, the quick, automatic application of whatever characterization of the person is invoked, as well whether we are attracted, indifferent, or want to see or know more, or not. But, looking unobserved at people also suggests a vulnerability of the person seen, and aggression by the looker in a figurative sense. It calls to mind the French expression for a glancing look, “coup d’oeil,” literally a hit of the eye. This thought led me to look again at some earlier paintings of bullet holes and of a man with a gun, which suddenly resonated with current events and seemed to have a relationship with the ‘seen from behind’ paintings in the sense of the aggression of looking at someone unobserved. Also, to me, the word ‘behind’ suggests what is behind us – our past. The ‘seen from behind’ figures could be the past leaving us behind, leaving us to our future.” Patrick Donovan has previously shown work in Los Angeles at Blackstone Gallery, Lava Projects, the Queer Biennial 2018, SoLA Contemporary, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and Last Projects; in Sacramento at the Crocker Art Museum; and in San Francisco at Paolo Meija Projects. His work was included in New American Painting, Pacific Coast Edition (2013). He has a BA (1971) in philosophy from Brandeis University and an MFA (2012) in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute.