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You Had Me at Goodbye: Robert McCann
Opening Reception:
Saturday, April 9, 6-9pm
Show Runs:
April 9 - May 22, 2011
A visual bedlam of fleeting modern mythos populates the sweeping oil landscapes of Robert McCann. This Michigan based artist creates vivid explorations of what happens when he merges friends, acquaintances and the occasional zombie or latest reality T.V. personality into suburban surroundings with all the trappings of strip malls and chain restaurants. His paintings create an uncertainty of what happen in the previous moments before the scene is captured, danger or chaos is the underlining tone, waiting or reacting to an impending crisis. Each narrative is a balance between aggression and submission, highlighting the tipping point between action and violence.
His most recent series of paintings reflect on “how modern technology and science make it easier for people to be superstitious, and broader themes of self image and willful self deception.” The images in his work are a culmination of questions and visual analogies combined on canvas to reveal a strange alternate existence merging with mundane activates of daily life. The expert rendering of the work reflects McCann’s interest in competing kinds of illusion and persuasion in painting, while some figures represent photographic representations other moments of mark making allude to the blips and glitches in digital video.
Robert McCann currently lives in Lansing, Michigan and is an assistant professor of art at Michigan State University. In 2001, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to paint in Berlin, Germany. McCann has shown in exhibitions throughout the United States and recently had a solo exhibition at Ormond Memorial Art Museum in Florida. This will be Robert McCann’s first exhibition in Minnesota.
