http://cargocollective.com Portfolio of James McGrath Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:16:17 +0000 http://cargocollective.com en http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/Lacuna-new-paintings-2013 http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/Lacuna-new-paintings-2013 Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:16:17 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 4526728 paintings in studio, 2013 or at Tim Olsen Gallery "Lacuna / Anamnesis” series “Lacuna,” the tale of a eucalypt forest that became a baroque library that became a show... Artist statement Lacuna n. pl. la·cu·nae (-n) or la·cu·nas Lacuna is a vacancy. Time, decay and weathering are responsible for lacunae; a section of a manuscript or text that has disappeared. From the Latin lacuna (“ditch, gap”), it can result in words, sentences or whole pages missing or illegible on the page. In music, Lacuna is a silence; an absence of notes. In linguistics, it is a lexical gap that is lost, meaningless, non-existent when translated into another language. Lacuna is a tool used to unlock cultural differences in a missing part within an ancient text. When one experiences lacuna amnesia, there is a gap in our record of memory. It is a blank space, missing intrinsic detail. The forest Imagine you are an En plein air painter, wandering into an Australian eucalyptus forest to work, only to discover a 500-year-old baroque monastic library sitting within it. Empty, filled with what? Why? Let's say that I was that artist and the paintings in this show are what I saw in that forest. <img src="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/lacuna 1-155cmx225cm-oil on panel-2012-mcgrath-smll5.jpg" width="670" height="453" width_o="800" height_o="542" src_o="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/lacuna 1-155cmx225cm-oil on panel-2012-mcgrath-smll5_o.jpg" data-mid="24049687" caption="lacuna 1 oil on canvas mounted to board 2012-50cm (h) x 220cm" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/lacuna 2 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-150cm h x 220cm_SMALL - Copy.jpg" width="670" height="433" width_o="2048" height_o="1323" src_o="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/lacuna 2 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-150cm h x 220cm_SMALL - Copy_o.jpg" data-mid="28926428" caption="lacuna 2 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-150cm (h) x 220cm" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/lacuna 4 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-150cm h x 193cm small.jpg" width="670" height="526" width_o="2000" height_o="1573" src_o="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/lacuna 4 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-150cm h x 193cm small_o.jpg" data-mid="28926323" caption=" lacuna 4 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-150cm (h) x 193cm" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/anamnesis - oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-150cm h x 197cm-small.jpg" width="670" height="515" width_o="2000" height_o="1539" src_o="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/anamnesis - oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-150cm h x 197cm-small_o.jpg" data-mid="28926313" caption="anamnesis - oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-150cm (h) x 197cm" border="0" align="left"/> To start, I never saw myself doing an Australian landscape painting...ever. This show contains my first paintings of an Australian forest. My lack of knowledge on Indigenous story, law or culture* meant any concept of painting an Australian landscape was just creative hubris. To this end, I never felt I could "see" or understand it fundamentally in order to paint it. My studies and training have been steeped in European art tradition, I was a studio assistant to a Neo-Renaissance painter in Paris at age seventeen. I was not sure if any western European envisioning would be appropriate. <img src="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/small----night lacuna 1 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-170cm h x 133cm - Copy.jpg" width="670" height="860" width_o="1557" height_o="2000" src_o="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/small----night lacuna 1 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-170cm h x 133cm - Copy_o.jpg" data-mid="28926353" caption="night lacuna 1 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-170cm (h) x 133cm" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/night anamnesis 3- oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-120cm h x 80cm---SMALL - Copy.jpg" width="670" height="999" width_o="1341" height_o="2000" src_o="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/night anamnesis 3- oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-120cm h x 80cm---SMALL - Copy_o.jpg" data-mid="28926360" caption="night anamnesis 3- oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-120cm (h) x 80cm" border="0" align="left"/>{image 10c aption=lacuna 3 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2012-150cm (h) x 233cm}<img src="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/night anamnesis 2- oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-120cm h x 80cm---small - Copy.jpg" width="670" height="1001" width_o="1338" height_o="2000" src_o="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/night anamnesis 2- oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-120cm h x 80cm---small - Copy_o.jpg" data-mid="28926451" caption="night lacuna 2 - oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-170cm (h) x 100cm" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/small----night anamnesis 1- oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-120cm h x 80cm - Copy.jpg" width="670" height="957" width_o="1400" height_o="2000" src_o="http://payload111.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/4526728/small----night anamnesis 1- oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-120cm h x 80cm - Copy_o.jpg" data-mid="28926467" caption="night anamnesis 1- oil on canvas mounted to board-2013-120cm (h) x 80cm" border="0" align="left"/> Lacuna For the last few years I have spent my holidays with my children in Kangaroo Valley. Beside our house is a small eucalyptus forest in which I've spent many hours. For all the time I've spent in the forest with my children playing hide and seek, it never occurred to me to paint it. It was simply visually incomprehensible to me. In a way, this show is the making of something I said I never would. This makes it both exciting and contradictory and it is this paradox the paintings “sit” within. Their visual juxtaposition and the contrast between the library, animals and eucalyptus play out my metaphorical musings as I sit beneath the trees. The forest (Kangaroo Valley) and the library (Prague) exist, although at opposite ends of the world. Time-wise, I have spent the last few years in Kangaroo Valley, but the library I was granted permission to enter for only five isolated days, two years ago in Prague. About a year ago I was sitting alone amongst the trees at sunset (of course it had to be sunset) thinking again how indecipherable this forest was to me (why is there stringy bark, anyway?) It occurred to me that this was exactly how I had felt in the Prague library when I sat in it the year before (see previous show “Ex Libris”). Alone and frankly intimidated, the old library and the giant trees were equally unreadable (I was not allowed to touch the 500-year-old books). Then I envisioned the forest via the library's baroque architectural framework and suddenly I "saw" the forest. It stopped being chaotic and instead became, and this will sound strange, a baroque theatre space. There in front of me was a stage: the foreground to background layers of sets, side lighting from the lowering sun. Instead of "bush" I saw perceptive lines, I saw how a story could be told. Then I had to paint the story... *The first inhabitants of Kangaroo Valley were the Wodi-Wodi Aboriginals who had reportedly occupied the land for around 20,000 years before the European settlement of Australia in 1788. An 1826 census indicated 79 Aborigines lived in the valley in 5 separate encampments. The library Shelves of bone-white, cracked parchments are ghost-like apparitions of their origin: the book and the library. In an age dominated by electronic books and information technology, the space evokes both the familiar authority of these artefacts and their inevitable demise. The contrast at the heart of the work refers not only to the old and the new, but to the stillness of the library against the living, breathing images that dwell amongst the books. "Ex Libris" was derived from the Latin term, "from the books." This latest show is a consequence of hundreds of sketches inspired by the grand interior of the Strahov Baroque Monastic Library in Prague, where McGrath was granted exclusive access in 2010. With the backdrop of 125,000 volumes on philosophical and theological texts, flora and fauna motifs are superimposed as caricatures of the artist on a timeless stage. “For several days I studied and drew, visually describing the library, part by part; one frame at a time. Over the last 18 months I have re-assembled these works to re-construct at 1:1 scale a 'library of metaphors' using metaphors to re-build the compositions and my mental state while in the library. An analogy the artist uses of this 'rebuilding,' is the purchasing of European castles by the 19th century American wealthy who numbered the stones, pulled them down and shipped them to the new world. The castle would then be reassembled according to the numbers on the stones. However, it could also be reassembled in a random numbering and the 'new' castle would be completely unique but still retain notions of its original 'castle-ness.' The library in Ex Libris has been rebuilt according to a pattern, a memory or abstraction, an analogy of the creative process itself. “While spending days on my own in library drawing studies, the feeling of a transient being amongst fixed knowledge was palpable. The stillness of the bookshelves observed via drawings from multiple viewpoints, one's own movement and absence of a trace, is unrecorded in the memory of the library space. Hence this notion of lost motion/memory in fixed space is paired in my work with the images of falling tulips or cornered rabbits, metaphors of transient bodies in continuity of space.” Ex Libris pays homage to the origin of the narrative paintings in studio, 2013 or at Tim Olsen Gallery "Lacuna / Anamnesis” series “Lacuna,” the tale of a eucalypt forest that became a baroque library that... http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/falling-folds-lambda-prints http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/falling-folds-lambda-prints Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:47 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1432785 sizes vary, all works face mounted to clear acrylic <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/1d.jpg" width="670" height="452" width_o="1600" height_o="1080" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/1d_o.jpg" data-mid="6978230" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/2.jpg" width="670" height="452" width_o="1600" height_o="1080" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/2_o.jpg" data-mid="6978232" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/5.jpg" width="670" height="452" width_o="1600" height_o="1080" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/5_o.jpg" data-mid="6978235" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/arch-path7.jpg" width="670" height="372" width_o="1600" height_o="889" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/arch-path7_o.jpg" data-mid="6978243" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/arch-path12b.jpg" width="670" height="372" width_o="1600" height_o="889" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/arch-path12b_o.jpg" data-mid="6978247" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/arch-path14.jpg" width="670" height="372" width_o="1600" height_o="889" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/arch-path14_o.jpg" data-mid="6978253" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/bib-test1.jpg" width="670" height="440" width_o="1367" height_o="898" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/bib-test1_o.jpg" data-mid="6978254" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/cloth falling double1-tif.jpg" width="670" height="998" width_o="1074" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/cloth falling double1-tif_o.jpg" data-mid="6978255" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling1.jpg" width="670" height="422" width_o="1600" height_o="1010" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling1_o.jpg" data-mid="6978256" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling2.jpg" width="670" height="423" width_o="1600" height_o="1011" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling2_o.jpg" data-mid="6978258" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling3.jpg" width="670" height="423" width_o="1600" height_o="1011" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling3_o.jpg" data-mid="6978259" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling4.jpg" width="670" height="399" width_o="1600" height_o="954" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling4_o.jpg" data-mid="6978260" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling5.jpg" width="670" height="399" width_o="1600" height_o="954" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling5_o.jpg" data-mid="6978261" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling6.jpg" width="670" height="998" width_o="1074" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling6_o.jpg" data-mid="6978264" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling7.jpg" width="670" height="407" width_o="1600" height_o="973" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling7_o.jpg" data-mid="6978265" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling103-single-cam- light4.jpg" width="670" height="474" width_o="1600" height_o="1132" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/falling103-single-cam- light4_o.jpg" data-mid="6978266" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/fall-pozzo2-Toronto08-60 x39-flat.jpg" width="670" height="1041" width_o="1029" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/fall-pozzo2-Toronto08-60 x39-flat_o.jpg" data-mid="6978267" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/fall-pozzo3-Toronto08-60 x39-flat.jpg" width="670" height="1041" width_o="1029" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/fall-pozzo3-Toronto08-60 x39-flat_o.jpg" data-mid="6978268" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/fall-pozzo4-small.jpg" width="649" height="1000" width_o="649" height_o="1000" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/fall-pozzo4-small_o.jpg" data-mid="6978269" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/toronto fall contact.jpg" width="670" height="251" width_o="1600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1432785/toronto fall contact_o.jpg" data-mid="6978272" border="0" align="left"/> sizes vary, all works face mounted to clear acrylic http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/CUSP-folds-flora-paintings-1999-2001 http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/CUSP-folds-flora-paintings-1999-2001 Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:46 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1433585 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/membrana_60x60.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="800" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/membrana_60x60_o.jpg" data-mid="6981679" border="0" align="left"/> The allure of Cusp lies in a game of seduction. It is the doorway to a world of sensual drapes and familiar still life motifs. The paintings are beckoning the viewer forward, simultaneously rejecting them with frames. Cusp captures the visual unrest intrinsic to the random absorption of the flower into the cloth and cloth into the flower. It is within this burning of terrains that principles of surface and space are embellished and formal theories of perspectives recede into the dark folds. This constant play of invitation and denial echoes the multiple spaces and painterly quality of the Baroque, with the deceivingly flat terrains reminiscent of Dutch principle. Cusp is informed by the rejection of monocular vision and the mutual nurturing of lush material detail found in both genres. Brushstrokes are swift and sharp, laden with a palette of deep cadmiums and umber glazes. The light source is ambiguous, as if lit by a flickering candle, and the obscure shadows it creates evokes the theatricality of the Baroque. Created in an unstable time in the artist’s life, the beauty of Cusp resides in its ever evolving, translucent nature. The body of work thrives on the visual flux achieved through merging different art historical approaches to the creation of space and atmosphere. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/tulip2_red_cmyk_110cm.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="800" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/tulip2_red_cmyk_110cm_o.jpg" data-mid="6981692" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/cloth__1.jpg" width="533" height="800" width_o="533" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/cloth__1_o.jpg" data-mid="6981672" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/foot-frag2-110.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="800" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/foot-frag2-110_o.jpg" data-mid="6981675" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/foot-frag2-110-V2.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="800" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/foot-frag2-110-V2_o.jpg" data-mid="6981676" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/FRAG1-~1.jpg" width="670" height="705" width_o="760" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/FRAG1-~1_o.jpg" data-mid="6981677" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/PAGE5.jpg" width="670" height="676" width_o="792" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/PAGE5_o.jpg" data-mid="6981680" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page8 copy.jpg" width="670" height="682" width_o="785" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page8 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="6981681" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page9 copy.jpg" width="670" height="663" width_o="800" height_o="792" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page9 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="6981682" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page10 copy.jpg" width="670" height="457" width_o="800" height_o="546" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page10 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="6981684" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page11 copy.jpg" width="670" height="453" width_o="800" height_o="542" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page11 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="6981686" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page12 copy.jpg" width="670" height="448" width_o="800" height_o="535" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page12 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="6981687" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page13 copy.jpg" width="670" height="452" width_o="800" height_o="540" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/page13 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="6981688" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/standing.jpg" width="533" height="800" width_o="533" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433585/standing_o.jpg" data-mid="6981689" border="0" align="left"/> Fullscreen The allure of Cusp lies in a game of seduction. It is the doorway to a world of sensual drapes and familiar still life motifs. The paintings are beckoning the... http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/pozzo-s-fall http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/pozzo-s-fall Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:41 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1433186 face mounted lambda prints , 100cm x 150cm <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/alma278-pozzo03.jpg" width="670" height="452" width_o="1600" height_o="1080" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/alma278-pozzo03_o.jpg" data-mid="6979977" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/fall-pozzo2-Toronto08-60 x39-flat.jpg" width="670" height="1041" width_o="1029" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/fall-pozzo2-Toronto08-60 x39-flat_o.jpg" data-mid="6979985" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/fall-pozzo3-Toronto08-60 x39-flat.jpg" width="670" height="1041" width_o="1029" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/fall-pozzo3-Toronto08-60 x39-flat_o.jpg" data-mid="6979991" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/fall-pozzo4-small.jpg" width="649" height="1000" width_o="649" height_o="1000" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/fall-pozzo4-small_o.jpg" data-mid="6979994" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/fall-pozzo-Toronto08-large.jpg" width="670" height="1041" width_o="1029" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/fall-pozzo-Toronto08-large_o.jpg" data-mid="6979998" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/mcgrath-10[1816].jpg" width="670" height="437" width_o="800" height_o="522" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/mcgrath-10[1816]_o.jpg" data-mid="6979999" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/bib-test1.jpg" width="670" height="440" width_o="1367" height_o="898" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433186/bib-test1_o.jpg" data-mid="6980538" border="0" align="left"/> face mounted lambda prints , 100cm x 150cm http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/ghost-nets-video-installation http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/ghost-nets-video-installation Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:39 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1433269 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433269/Fullscreen capture 10222009 23123 PM.bmp.jpg" width="670" height="291" width_o="1024" height_o="445" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433269/Fullscreen capture 10222009 23123 PM.bmp_o.jpg" data-mid="6980341" border="0" align="left"/> Ghosts Nets is a video installation projected onto the seacliffs at Tamarama Beach in Sydney as part of Sculpture by the Sea 2009. Artist James Mcgrath, Composer Barton Staggs, Photography George Evatt . Below is a 2 min edited (unprojected video). Ghosts Nets is a video installation projected onto the seacliffs at Tamarama Beach in Sydney as part of Sculpture by the Sea 2009. Artist James Mcgrath, Composer... http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/VISION-VERSE http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/VISION-VERSE Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:38 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1433541 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number2-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number2-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981453" border="0" align="left"/> VISION & VERSE London based show exploring Williams Blake using Lambda prints. Artist and poet William Blake provides one of the primary sources of inspiration for McGrath in this solo London exhibition at the Neville Keating Gallery. The exhibition (the series) is a remarkable combination of familiar images combined with cutting edge technology. The key to McGrath’s technique in these works is CAD (computer assisted design) which allows him to produce art as visual history. He uses three-dimensional fabric simulation software to literally fold different historical genres and narratives into assorted images that are combined into a kind of 3D theater that combines photography, paintings washes and etchings. The result is a grand tour de force mounted on polished plexiglas. McGrath says of these works: “The Plexiglas panels combine Baroque spatial theory with contemporary elements and an 18th century sensibility. These panels are not photography, traditional painting, nor pure digital art, and yet they are linked to them all.” Blake, with his eccentric combination of poet-painter and very personal mythology, was a natural subject for McGrath’s own imagination which overlaps many mediums. In McGrath’s large panels (photo/paintings bounded to polished Plexiglas), he explores not only Blake’s assimilation into these digital spaces but also the concept of “poetic influence”or misprions (1). First coined by the great literary theorist Harold Bloom in The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. McGrath has visualized this “misprision/misreading”(or italics?) process proposed by Bloom and used it as a structure to reframe Blake. The artist describes the final outcome: “The Plexiglass panels combine the use of Baroque spatial theory with a modern notion of emerging elements and layered imagery to create a visual density that is both contemporary and expressive of an 18th century sensibility. These panels are not photography, traditional painting, nor pure digital art – and yet are linked to them all. The works literally fold Blakes genres and narratives (religious and mythical) together to create an intriguing contemporary image.” McGrath’s central objective in his work, is to explore and elevate paradigms for (visual) reading, to elaborate new slants on “old” traditions, to revivify the art of memory to selectively “free” ourselves from the daemon of Anteriority. (1)“Influence means revisionism, deformation, fear and defiance: Poetic influence - when it involves two strong, authentic poets - always proceeds by a misreading of the prior poet, an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a misinterpretation. The history of fruitful poetic influence, which is to say the main tradition of Western poetry since the Renaissance, is a history of anxiety and self-saving caricature, of distortion, of perverse, willful revisionism without which modern poetry as such could not exist.” Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 30. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/15-flat-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/15-flat-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981446" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/19-for catalog.jpg" width="670" height="484" width_o="800" height_o="578" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/19-for catalog_o.jpg" data-mid="6981447" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number1-large-v1-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number1-large-v1-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981451" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number3-a4.jpg" width="552" height="800" width_o="552" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number3-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981454" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number4_a4.jpg" width="580" height="800" width_o="580" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number4_a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981455" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number7-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number7-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981461" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number8-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number8-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981466" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/NUMBER8C-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/NUMBER8C-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981474" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number12-letter.jpg" width="640" height="800" width_o="640" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number12-letter_o.jpg" data-mid="6981477" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number13-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number13-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981481" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number13B-letter.jpg" width="670" height="536" width_o="800" height_o="640" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number13B-letter_o.jpg" data-mid="6981485" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number014-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number014-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981489" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-9-letter.jpg" width="640" height="800" width_o="640" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-9-letter_o.jpg" data-mid="6981492" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-11-letter.jpg" width="640" height="800" width_o="640" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-11-letter_o.jpg" data-mid="6981497" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-16-letter.jpg" width="670" height="536" width_o="800" height_o="640" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-16-letter_o.jpg" data-mid="6981500" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-24-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-24-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981504" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-25-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-25-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981506" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-26-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433541/number-26-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981508" border="0" align="left"/> VISION & VERSE London based show exploring Williams Blake using Lambda prints. Artist and poet William Blake provides one of the primary sources of inspiration... http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/white-call-series-lambda-prints http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/white-call-series-lambda-prints Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:36 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1433332 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/white-100x150.jpg" width="670" height="1014" width_o="1057" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/white-100x150_o.jpg" data-mid="6980478" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/white2-75x50cm.jpg" width="670" height="1007" width_o="1064" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/white2-75x50cm_o.jpg" data-mid="6980475" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/white-call-old-429max11-all.jpg" width="670" height="1087" width_o="986" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/white-call-old-429max11-all_o.jpg" data-mid="6980483" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/tielipo-40X60-MED.jpg" width="670" height="1012" width_o="741" height_o="1120" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/tielipo-40X60-MED_o.jpg" data-mid="6980494" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/sash-only-anim03.jpg" width="670" height="309" width_o="800" height_o="369" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433332/sash-only-anim03_o.jpg" data-mid="6980472" border="0" align="left"/> face mounted lambda prints, 100cm x 150cm face mounted lambda prints, 100cm x 150cm http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/infrared-baroque http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/infrared-baroque Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:34 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1433851 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/cartona1.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="800" height_o="530" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/cartona1_o.jpg" data-mid="6983260" border="0" align="left"/> The bare skeleton of a painting is scientifically exposed in Infra-Red Baroque. Similar to the DNA imaging of humans, an infra-red camera is used to analyse the relationship between surface and depth in old masterpieces, inspiring work that not only celebrates Baroque sensibility, but is deeply spiritual and disturbing. The body of work is a result of McGrath’s travels through Italy in 2000, following the death of his father. With an infrared video camera, he photographed paintings in churches and Baroque buildings, revealing the layers of paint and changes in composition which the artist had made during the painting process. Using these photographs as inspiration, his paintings critique techniques and spatial perspectives of the past. Infra-Red Baroque is fundamentally a rejection of traditional composition. The paintings are stylised like a Baroque theatre - a backdrop of gesso, middle-ground of white block-in and a foreground dense with haunting narrative. The viewer is gazing from the back of the stage out into the audience, a reverse layering of paint that acts like an ex-ray into the construction of a work. “My work engages the viewer in a game of hide and seek in which paint, structure and narrative are entangled.” It represents a marriage between traditional Baroque principles with 21st century technology and furthered McGrath’s examination into the reconstruction of painting which features in much of his work. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/cartona1.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="800" height_o="530" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/cartona1_o.jpg" data-mid="6983260" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/gothic1.jpg" width="670" height="588" width_o="800" height_o="703" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/gothic1_o.jpg" data-mid="6983249" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/beatrice7-lrg.jpg" width="623" height="800" width_o="623" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/beatrice7-lrg_o.jpg" data-mid="6983259" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/GOTHIC2.jpg" width="416" height="800" width_o="416" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/GOTHIC2_o.jpg" data-mid="6983261" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/leo1.jpg" width="670" height="641" width_o="1600" height_o="1532" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/leo1_o.jpg" data-mid="6983266" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/P2B.jpg" width="670" height="687" width_o="780" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/P2B_o.jpg" data-mid="6983268" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/PORTAI~2-1.jpg" width="533" height="800" width_o="533" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/PORTAI~2-1_o.jpg" data-mid="6983269" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/portait1b.jpg" width="670" height="642" width_o="1600" height_o="1534" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/portait1b_o.jpg" data-mid="6983271" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/portait7.jpg" width="670" height="748" width_o="716" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433851/portait7_o.jpg" data-mid="6983272" border="0" align="left"/> The bare skeleton of a painting is scientifically exposed in Infra-Red Baroque. Similar to the DNA imaging of humans, an infra-red camera is used to analyse the... http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/Titians-Gaze http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/Titians-Gaze Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:33 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1433566 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433566/number5-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433566/number5-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981600" border="0" align="left"/> A series of commissioned pieces based on based on Titian woodcuts. face mounted lambda prints, 120c x 180cmm <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433566/number6-a4.jpg" width="670" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="580" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433566/number6-a4_o.jpg" data-mid="6981601" border="0" align="left"/> A series of commissioned pieces based on based on Titian woodcuts. face mounted lambda prints, 120c x 180cmm http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/pozzo-s-view-paintings-2006-2008 http://cargocollective.com/james-mcgrath/following/james-mcgrath/pozzo-s-view-paintings-2006-2008 Sun, 27 May 2012 20:00:31 +0000 Portfolio of James McGrath 1433648 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/pozzo-ceiling-blue-figurev3-flat-lighter -SMALL.jpg" width="670" height="434" width_o="1600" height_o="1037" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/pozzo-ceiling-blue-figurev3-flat-lighter -SMALL_o.jpg" data-mid="6982060" border="0" align="left"/> Large oil paintings . The work is based on the frescoes of the great Jesuit Perspectivalist of the Baroque era, Andrea Pozzo and his ceiling cycle Saint Ignatius Loyola Entering into Heaven in the church Sant'Ignazio in Rome. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/frag1.jpg" width="250" height="126" width_o="250" height_o="126" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/frag1_o.jpg" data-mid="6982049" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/fragg2.jpg" width="250" height="126" width_o="250" height_o="126" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/fragg2_o.jpg" data-mid="6982052" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/ir-pozzo_tryp-1.jpg" width="670" height="201" width_o="1600" height_o="482" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/ir-pozzo_tryp-1_o.jpg" data-mid="6982053" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/pozzo2.jpg" width="250" height="138" width_o="250" height_o="138" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/pozzo2_o.jpg" data-mid="6982054" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/pozzo-ceiling-blue-figurev4-small.jpg" width="670" height="433" width_o="1600" height_o="1036" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/pozzo-ceiling-blue-figurev4-small_o.jpg" data-mid="6982065" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/pozzo-ceiling-blue-v5-final.jpg" width="670" height="434" width_o="1600" height_o="1037" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/pozzo-ceiling-blue-v5-final_o.jpg" data-mid="6982070" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/red-falling-48-5x70-9in.jpg" width="670" height="979" width_o="1094" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/red-falling-48-5x70-9in_o.jpg" data-mid="6982073" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/ryans-400cm x 180cm-v2.jpg" width="670" height="301" width_o="1600" height_o="720" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/ryans-400cm x 180cm-v2_o.jpg" data-mid="6982074" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/versailles hall of mirrors -to print-140x192cm.jpg" width="670" height="920" width_o="1164" height_o="1600" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/versailles hall of mirrors -to print-140x192cm_o.jpg" data-mid="6982077" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/versialle-horz-4.jpg" width="670" height="335" width_o="1600" height_o="802" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/111168/1433648/versialle-horz-4_o.jpg" data-mid="6982080" border="0" align="left"/> Large oil paintings . The work is based on the frescoes of the great Jesuit Perspectivalist of the Baroque era, Andrea Pozzo and his ceiling cycle Saint Ignatius...