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| Untitled
(a small chest of drawers with one drawer that doesn’t
fit), 2008,
51
¼” x 28” x 20”, Maple, enamel paint |
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James Harris
Gallery is pleased to present Purplish, an exhibition featuring
new work by Roy McMakin. As artist, architect, and furniture designer,
McMakin moves seamlessly between these varied disciplines, always
toying with our expectations of that which surrounds us in the domestic
realm.
Purplish unites
McMakin’s conceptually rigorous work in sculpture, photography,
and drawing. Sculpturally, the artist has a penchant for disrupting
the familiar in everyday furniture, often confounding the functionality
of such objects. A chest of drawers, for example, is a chest of
drawers, yet with one exception—one drawer sits apart, too
large to fit the empty hole it should fill. In the same way, McMakin
uses the medium of photography to create objects that embrace both
wit and significance. By transforming two found paintings, a partially
sewn blouse, and pieces of faded fabric into photographic two-dimensional
artworks, he captures the details that often go unnoticed and engages
in a philosophical contemplation of the lived history of such objects.
McMakin’s
photographs, seemingly simple and pared down, embody the artist’s
exquisite attention to detail. They are constructed much like his
furniture, with many parts subsumed into a coherent whole. As if
each were a sculpture, McMakin gives dimension to this flat medium
by examining the objects on all sides—front and back, top
and bottom, left and right. Moreover, attempting to avoid the manifest
distortion of the camera lens, he constructs each of these views
through a composite of numerous images—a process that not
only acknowledges the limits of the medium but also suggests the
limits of our own perceptual understanding. Purplish, bringing together
a compelling body of work that subtly explores notions of family
and relationships through objects, demonstrates the artist’s
constant reframing of the domestic realm and his play with the lines
between art, architecture, and design.
McMakin’s
work has been shown nationally, most notably in a 2003 retrospective
exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the
Henry Art Gallery. Other venues for his solo exhibitions include
the Portland Art Museum, San Diego State University Art Gallery,
and Seattle Art Museum. McMakin’s work has recently been featured
in Art on Paper, Wallpaper, and The New York Times Magazine.
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6
Photographs of a Painting of a Boy I Bought at an Antique
Mall, 2008
2 views 38 ½” x 6 ½”; 2 views 38
½” x 36 ¾”; 2 views 8 ½”
x 36 ¾”
Digital pigment print
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