Major Works

Major Artworks

What moment is worth living for? What moment captures the essence of being alive? What moment best captures the realization of absolute best? These soulful questions live at the heart of my major works. Since 1977, the paintings themselves have addressed these questions. Each one focuses on an individual or a couple, composed on the canvas as if at the center of the universe, each expressing a celebration of unselfconsciousness. These paintings’ insistence on humanity as the center of all things has remained surprisingly consistent for half a century. They also require technical mastery, and techniques as unique and nuanced as the individual states of being they embody.

The Newberry Technique was developed by two factors: the study of a few great artists Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Monet; and pure and very intense observation of reality. An example of the latter from early on was two years of life drawing, immersive and self-directed, 4000 hours drawing from a live model creating over 8,000 sketches. The Newberry Technique understands the secret code embedded in art, that technique has a symbolic language: contour line represent boundaries; spatial depth represents psychological depth; form represents concrete reality; and shadow represents the dark alter ego, while light represents enlightenment. When these codes and techniques are integrated the result is a stunning aliveness in the painting that also packs a huge metaphorical language—all of which is absorbed subliminally by you within seconds. Art was the original clandestine psyop, 40,000 years ahead of its time.

All the major works have these codes embedded in them. But there is one factor above all others that separates a Newberry in the realm of art: the endpoint of each painting is a celebration of a magical moment in a well-lived life. This includes success in love, life, beauty, honor, and a special kind of happiness: eudaemonia. 

Far from being unaware of human struggles, the point is that failure and hardship are not human aims, while the realization of our potential is. No one in the history of the world better defines this than Aristotle. He stands alone at the pinnacle of creating a commonsensical and realistic blueprint, which he calls eudaemonia, guiding us on how to achieve happiness in the natural, physical world. He is also empathetically cognizant that honor might only be available to those limited by no fault of their own.

Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia as an end in itself is an epoch-changing evolutionary leap, only surpassed by the birth of art itself. The killer concept here is "an end in itself." It’s a celebratory moment of reaching one’s ultimate aim, with no goal higher than that, just the incredible experience of realizing one is making it.

Decades prior to encountering Aristotle, these major works were already answering: What is the ultimate state of being? What moments are the “it” of existence? Unlike philosophy, which tells, these artworks embody and show this extraordinary state of being. This unique understanding of the ultimate quest of humanity is rare and special. 

Major Works

Inquiries: mtnewberry@gmail.com