User:Writevox/sandbox

Introduction
Dennis Flavin, a contemporary artist working in abstraction, lives and works in Gloucester, MA. Working in various media, Flavin paints in multiple layers, creating complexity while journeying back towards simplicity. Sometimes incorporating children’s play sand into his oil paints to add graphic texture to convey emotional states; form and color are the most important things. He works in several media coaxing colors and shapes to create compositions that playfully confront and engage the viewer.

Education
Dennis Flavin was born in 1950, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Artistic from a young age, he started his training in high school art classes which led him to teach adult evening classes in jewelry making at the age of seventeen. With the intention of going into art education after high school Flavin enrolled in art classes at Curry College before enrolling full time in the Vesper George School of Art. Flavin began a lifelong friendship with Vesper George teacher, and American Impressionist, John C. Terelak. Terelak inspired Flavin’s engagement with painting and he soon switched his focus from teaching to painting, “I make art because I love to paint. Once I start painting, I can feel it coming out of my body, hands, mind. I don’t see anything around me I just focus on my painting.” Flavin first came to Cape Ann in 1970 on a summer scholarship from Vesper George. He continued his relationship with Terelak, studying at Terelak’s newly opened Gloucester Academy of Fine Arts in 1975. Flavin moved to Cape Ann, maintaining an art studio first in Rockport, and then in the Gloucester neighborhoods of The Fort and Lanesville before he settling his family in Annisquam Village. Flavin owns and operates Halibut Point Restaurant, a pub and family place on the east end of Gloucester’s Main Street, in business for over 30 years. A dedicated artist, he finds time to get into the studio every day. His studio in Annisquam is in an old barn building next to his home.

Exhibitions
November 2013 – Walls of Plenty, Trident Gallery August 2013 – Home: The Inaugural Exhibition, Trident Gallery April 2013 – Dennis Flavin - Uncommon Vision, Cape Ann Museum March 2012 – In the Rough - Solo Exhibit, Taste O’Sea Gallery

References:
1.^Gloucester Daily Times(http://www.gloucestertimes.com/lifestyle/x426441151/Restaurateur-shows-artistic-side) 2.^Gloucester Daily Times (http://www.gloucestertimes.com/lifestyle/x1862029770/Dennis-Flavins-Uncommon-Vision) 3.^Trident Gallery (http://tridentgallery.com/#section:exhibitions) 4.^Cape Ann Museum (http://www.capeannmuseum.org/exhibitions/dennis-flavin/)