“I am a painter with lots of other professions to attend to, but painting has been my life’s work, a vocation. I have been remiss in exhibiting, I’m not quite sure why, but [painting] has been my last half-century’s passion. It’s where I know who I am or who I am becoming. Many of the paintings come from dreams: I see this, I must paint it, I wake up and commit it to memory. Others come from concentrating on what is on my eyelids when they are closed. The images are very important to me until they are committed to canvas. Then I move on. Sometimes when I’m thinking about something else, a painting comes to mind and I discover what it was about. Sometimes I name them, or write something like a poem about them, but I always forget the names. I also forget what I called the poem and cannot find it in my computer either. But the paintings are paramount. It’s my job and sometimes my joy, but it’s always like prayer.
[Lately] I am finding wonder and mystery and a great hope. I am dreaming dreams, like old men in the prophecies, and I am filled with hope and trust in the Lord, who alone gives us the Way, the Truth, and the Life. His whole life preaches that this life is worth all the trouble. The beauty is an everlasting underlying reality which permeates everything around us – both seen and unseen. There has to be a reason for all this drive to know Him, to love Him, to follow Him to the cross and beyond. I find my painting helps my faith; it must be a gift if even just to me.”
-Dennis McNally, SJ
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Titles marked with ” * ” have been assigned by the curator in absence of the artist’s original title.