The Two Sides of Vincent Crotty
By Beth Neville
Neville Art Enterprises
11/24/11
Employing a vigorous painting style, Vincent Crotty depicts both the beauty of Boston’s marshes and the reality of life in Dorchester. It is unusual for a painter to address two such different topics and he handles both with a mature style and originality.

Emigrating from Ireland 22 years ago, Crotty has worked steadily at his art and developed a sure eye for outdoor scenes.

However, to really understand his art the viewer has to look beyond the recognizable scenes of houses, people and marshes, to discover the yearning, the hope and the transformation of a young lad working in Ireland’s factories into the mature artist Crotty has made himself. His art career speaks of hard work, perseverance, talent and the possibilities of the American Dream, still alive in Dorchester.

“Dorchester Triple Decker” is his most challenging work. Viewed from a rear alley, the three-story yellow building with its one car garage, is bathed in the gloomy shadows of a winter afternoon. Soiled snow covers the driveway and the tall building is wedged between its equally forbidding neighbors. But two narrow slivers of golden sunlight are seen on either side of the building.

At first glance it is only a street scene, but who lives here? Do they have jobs or number among Dorchester’s unemployed? Sad and broken families? The treacherous snow path and the closed garage door say, “no secrets will be revealed.” But beyond the house, the golden glow hints at hope for a better future.

Crotty’s romantic side is revealed in paintings of the Neponset River, marshes, the Corita oil tank, and kids fishing in the bay. Using a broad stiff brush he drags thick oil paint across a color-primed canvas creating strokes that close up dissolve into a matrix of repetitive lines.

But step back a pace or two and, like magic, reeds, trees, clouds, tides, and boats appear. In these scenes, Crotty’s heavy thoughts drop away and he is just a happy kid again painting a scene in his adopted country.

(Crotty’s art is being exhibited at the Milton Public Library throughout November.)