Image by Dean Smale

A Neo-Platonic Relationship | Dean Smale’s latest collection of paintings were influenced by Renaissance philosophy... and the unavoidable reality of death.

Dean Smale wants to show you something. Something that’s inside you; it’s inside all of us. No, it’s not the devil. It’s our sense ... our inner sense, if you will.

“Science has somewhat removed the idea of faith and we are getting to know more about the universe metaphysically,” says Smale. “That has made us more curious about the concepts of death and our own mythologies around it. It is the curiosity of what there may be beyond death, if anything.”

Smale’s collection of figurative paintings and drawings is entitled, as you may have intuited already,  Inner Sense — it opens on Oct. 10 at Common Sense Gallery (10546-115th St), where it will run until Nov.  6.   And as he states above, it’s a study of our perception of ourselves, our world, and our involvement as we live in it and as we  leave it.

“There are going to be some drawings that investigate aspects of science and human anatomy,” Smale says. “There is a painting of a brain with its optic nerves and eyes still connected beside a still life. That painting is stemming from my avid interest in Neo-Platonism; during the Renaissance, there is this idea that perspectives were largely the vanishing point ... the energy where God has transmitted back and forward energy. And I’m not trying to express any interest in God; I’m just trying to show interest in the mythologies and ideologies that humans create when trying to explain the  unexplainable.

“I think it’s more personalized on some level,” he continues. “I think one thing about my work is that it does grab people’s attention. It’s not a pretty picture, you know; it’s communicating something deeper. Whether the people like the image or dislike the image, it will grab their attention and have them think about what is happening. My work is definitely not on the level of decorative ... It’s not created to decorate people’s homes. Although, I think they are beautiful.”