What I've learned...so far...

 

In my latest studio newsletter, there's a section called "Exit" where I posted an Esquire Magazine-like series of statements about my experiences of making site-specific temporary installations, like Tumbler, that's now on view in the Speer Gallery at the Shipley School. The magazine section is called, "What I've Learned..." from which I borrowed the format for my version of it. My "What I've Learned..." are reflections on my ongoing project of making temporary installations made up of drawings on large sheets of paper, clear acetate, silver mylar, frosted mylar and, in the past, tracing paper. Tumbler is the third, and largest, iteration of this idea. 

The making of Tumbler was different from the previous two because there were people passing through and present in the space where I was working between classes. I had to be more careful than usual about keeping my materials out of the way of students and staff passing by, as well as being aware of being watched, however briefly, while making the piece. I wasn't particularly worried about that aspect, but it did make me a little anxious at times, as working in a public or semi-public space will do. In the end, I channeled that nervous energy into a laser like focus on the work. I learned some new things and am grateful to have had this experience that I can now take and use for the next one. 

Without any further delay, here's what I've learned about making site-specific works in public/semi-public spaces, so far...

- I always wind up buying more nails than I really need

- Making unplanned work in public forces action

- Fear creates energy to move ahead with the work

- Having people witness your creative process can be affirming

- Having people witness your creative process feels like electrified nakedness

- Using the drawings in different places and ways always seems to open up new possibilities

- I love manipulating (tearing, folding, creasing...) the drawings from one installation to the next and seeing how they change

- When that weird middle section of the install happens and I want to rush to get past it, I let myself feel the angst, and then take extra long, deep breaths and walk away if need be. Same as when I'm in the studio. 

- My palms always get sweaty when it comes to heights, no matter how safe I am

- When people ask questions about what I'm making, it forces me to get better at making good, short answers

- My stomach is in knots the whole time

- Transforming a space through artistic intervention is a great uplifting experience

TM

"Evidence" install at The Shipley School

Above: Images of the works in Evidence and Tumbler being installed in the Speer Gallery last week

    

 It's been a week! I spent last Saturday installing nine paintings for my solo show, Evidence, at The Shipley School located in Bryn Mawr, PA. Months ago, I was contacted by Meredith Turner, Co-Chair of the Art Department/Speer Gallery at Shipley about the possibility of showing work there. We exchanged emails, but it took some time for her to get back to me due to a death in her family. Anyway, when we picked up the conversation again later in the summer, I was definitely ready to see what was on the table. I went for a visit between trips abroad, enjoyed meeting Meredith (meeting her again, I should say because we were students in the Department of Art and Art Education at Temple back in the 90's at the same time). 

    She showed me around and explained that her and another teacher there, Carol Royer, were co-chairs in the Art Department and for the gallery. Carol and I once shared a studio space back in the early 2000s in Old City, at 16-A North 3rd Street. Meredith explained that they had just taken over the running of the gallery and were looking to do some new things with it, liked my work and asked if I'd be willing to have a show there. She also mentioned that she was open to different ideas about how to use the gallery space, so I accepted right away. I had an inkling of what I wanted to do, but not a clear picture at that time. It became more fully formed as time passed after that initial meeting. 

    What I came up with was showing a number of recent paintings from 2020-2022 that hadn't been shown,yet, and making another site-specific wall installation. All of this I did last weekend and on Thursday and Friday of last week. The wall piece, like the past ones, is made up of drawings on paper, frosted mylar, silver mylar and clear acetate. The drawings are creased, folded, returned to their original shapes and then installed on the wall with no prior plan as to what will go where. All of that is figured out as I go along. The main part of this one, Tumbler, wound up being circular in form. I added two other parts on opposite walls and connected all three with colored rope extending from various points on the three walls. The gallery space is very vertical, so I wanted to take advantage of the ceiling height to make something that would cause the students and staff who traverse that area to experience that space in a radically different way than they usually do. 

    Like with other pieces like this, I was surprised that I was able to bring it all together over two days. The small amount of planning that went into this went a long way. As I mentioned above, none of how it turned out was planned; I only knew what materials I wanted to use and I wanted to place the various elements of the work. The reaction to it from staff and students has been very positive and I'm looking forward to talking about it more on the 17th, when I'm scheduled to give an artist talk. The reception is on the 18th. I sent out a studio newsletter announcing the show with details that I haven't posted on social media yet. I'm trying to get more subscribers because I'm attempting to give people more value with the newsletter and not post certain things online, or not posting online until much later. We'll see what happens. I don't  blame people for not wanting to sign up for another newsletter because I know we all have overflowing inboxes, but I'm still going to keep trying to expand this aspect of my marketing. It's been slow going in gaining new subscribers and I think I may have to add more incentives in the future, like giveaways of small drawings or something like that. 

TM

Looking back: "Inverted Dislocation" brochure, 2004

(Above: Brochure for "Inverted Dislocation", with essay by Gerard Brown, 2004)

Recently, I've been going through old art-related papers, exhibition notices, writings, etc...and starting the task of organizing it all. It's been interesting to look back over some of this history, think about that time and how far I've come since. Above are photos of the exhibition brochure for my first solo show at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery, back in 2004. The show was titled, "Inverted Dislocation" and featured works that were much more 'minimal' in appearance than anything that came after. 

I was interested in minimalism at the time, but not the idea that the human hand should not be present. That felt like a dead-end line of thinking for me. I was very much into the materiality of paint on surfaces and not hiding that a person made these works. The extreme side of minimalism, as practiced by Donald Judd and others, shunned any trace of the human hand in the making of art work. With my paintings, I wanted to bring the viewer in with strong form and color and hopefully keep their attention when they got up close and saw all of the shifts in color, surface quality and other materials that I may have used, like graphite. 

A few years prior to this work, in the mid to late 90's, I was making work that was much more grounded in a kind of mixed media painting that straddled the line between painting and sculpture. Those works were comprised of acrylic on wood panels, aluminum, plexiglas, hardware like screws and more. As I worked my way through that body of work, I felt the pull towards a more stripped down kind of painting that was influenced by the Irish-

American painter, Sean Scully and aspects of architecture in cityscapes. My thinking at the time focused on creating spaces that referenced man-made environments, but weren't about a specific place or time. 

Considering Scully's huge influence on my work then, I really struggled with making these paintings, but felt compelled to do so. I wanted to make what I considered straight-forward, bold paintings that subverted viewers' expectations. The first thing people would see were the colors and patterns and maybe think about going past them, but hopefully, the work would be enticing enough for them to come closer to the painting for a better look and discover that there was more going on besides the first impression of pattern and perceived flatness. There's all manner of brushwork, variations in color and other marks that energized those paintings.

My reticence in showing these paintings was that I considered them to be too much like Sean Scully's work. Now, I knew that they didn't really look like his work, but I had been so nose-deep in studying his work that I felt that anyone would make that connection. Maybe they did, but the more I painted, the more that I realized that these were definitely *my* paintings and not knock-offs of Scully's pieces. Realizing that I didn't want those automatic comparisons, I did as much as I could to make my compositions as unique as I could within the parameters of form and color that I set for myself. Once I got past my fear of comparison, I dove into the work fully and feel that I managed to make a group of paintings that stand on their own.

TM

New solo exhibition-Transmissions at UArts (Philadelphia)

Tim McFarlane-Transmissions

 Transmissions features a selection of new paintings and works on paper from 2015-16.

Tim McFarlane
'Transmissions'

September 7-30, 2016 
Opening Reception on Wednesday, September 7th from 4-6pm.
Gallery 817, Anderson Hall, 8th Floor, University of the Arts, 333 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA

Transmissions was curated by Marcelino Stuhmer and Charles Browning of UArts.

Visit my website and click on the 'Paintings 2016' section to see images of recent paintings, some of which will be in Transmissions: TimMcFarlane.com

Throwback...

 September, 2013-posing with Pink Mirror (2012) at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery during my solo exhibition, Presence. 

'Presence' takes off!

I'm trying to catch up with various things after having a great opening reception for my current exhibition, "Presence",  at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery last Friday (9.06.13). It was a great night with me catching up with friends, colleagues, collectors, and others.

The opening was followed up by a wonderfully complimentary review in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer by Edith Newhall. You can read the review online here: "Settling in at Bridgette Mayer"

The full text is below:

"Settling in at Bridgette Mayer"
By Edith Newhall (Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday September 9, 2013)

"It's been fascinating to see how artists have responded to the Bridgette Mayer Gallery's redesigned space since its official reopening in November 2011 - in particular, the ways in which the gallery's "old guard" have rethought their former quarters when having their first solo shows in the "new" space.

It's the same historic building, of course, but it now has one very long wall running along a somewhat narrow hallway, and one huge, spectacular one in the back that literally draws gallery visitors like a giant magnet. The new iteration is also as polished and professional as it used to be cozy and relaxed.

Surprisingly, though, considering they might have been intimidated by their new digs, all of the longstanding gallery artists who've had one-person shows at Mayer since 2011 have risen to the challenge, none more so than Tim McFarlane. In his first solo show in the new space, he has managed what many artists before him have not been able to do - find the right balance and scale of works for the hallway and then make the most of that huge back wall.

With "Presence," McFarlane has also created one of his most cohesive bodies of work to date; the small paintings displayed in the front room and along the hallway announce that right away. In each, energetically painted gestural lines form netlike compositions that coalesce with varying background colors, conjuring different places and experiences, musical rhythms, and McFarlane's own riff on the physical act of painting.

So many paintings of the same size need not have been hung so close together - a strategy that's been employed in other shows here to take advantage of the long wall but that tends to undermine the individuality of works - but the paintings across from them are varied in scale and color and more anomalous in this show, such as his bucolic, lovely Vortex, which combines a gestural composition with an inner open space that looks like a clearing in a forest.

McFarlane's enormous site-specific painting, We Dance to Pray, on the back wall is the most exciting, visceral use of this wall to date, allowing viewers the sensation of walking into the painting. At the same time, it is a logical progression in his show (as was Eileen Neff's photographic work on this wall in her show at this time last year), not straining to be a separate "project."

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Also, during the opening, Bridgette Mayer presented a check for $17,000.00 to members of non-profit dance company Ballet X, based in Philadelphia. The funds are the result of money raised during the 2013 Benefit Exhibition, held earlier this summer at the gallery. The benefit continues online until November 1st at phillyartexperience.com/art, where two of my paintings on panel can be purchased (10 x 10 inches, acrylic on panel, both completed in spring 2013. 

Last, but not least, I will be in attendance at the gallery this Saturday, September 14th, from 11am-2pm, so if you are in the area, stop by to see the show and chat a bit!

"Presence": Solo Exhibition at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery

"Pink Mirror", 2012, acrylic on panel, 36" x 36"

I'm pleased to announce my next solo exhibition at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery, "Presence".  Presence will consist of paintings completed in 2012 and 2013. The new paintings explore themes related to physical and sensory experiences related to identity and place. There is also a continuing engagement with linear mark-making that defines space and form in my work. 

Tim McFarlane: "Presence'

September 5-October 5, 2013

Opening Reception: Friday, September 6th, 6-8:30pm

Bridgette Mayer Gallery

709 Walnut Street, 1st Floor

Philadelphia, PA, 19106

www.bridgettemayergallery.com

bmayer@bridgettemayergallery.com

215.413.8893

If you're in or near Philadelphia during the month of September, stop by and see the show!

Studio visit: David Foss (8.24.10)

I stopped by David Foss's studio last week and got to check out some of the work that he has been busy with for the past several months. David has an upcoming solo show at LGTripp Gallery this September-October. Titled, 'Exits and Entrances', the show will consist of new paintings, works on paper and sculpture. 

David Foss

Exits and Entrances

September 10-October 16, 2010

Artist Reception: September 11, 5-7pm

First Friday, October 1, 6-8:30pm

 

LGTripp Gallery

47 N. 2nd Street

Philadelphia, Pa 19106

www.lgtrippgallery.com

Two more summer shows

Mark Brosseau

Capricious, 2010
Assorted Watermedia on Canvas, 20 x 26"

Mark Brosseau has a new solo exhibition opening this week at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery. Mark's show, "Wondrous Spaces" features all-new paintings and drawings in accordian books in the Vault Room-"Wondrous Sequences".

Mark Brosseau

"Wondrous Spaces"

July 6-July 31, 2010

Opening Reception:

Friday, July 9, 2010

6-8:30pm

Bridgette Mayer Gallery

709 Walnut Street, 1st Floor

Philadelphia, PA 19106

"RSVP" at LG Tripp Gallery

Group Exhibition

July 9 – August 21, 2010

Artists Reception, July 10, 4 – 7 pm
First Friday, August 6, 6 – 8:30 pm

LG Tripp Gallery

47-49 N. 2nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19106

solo

My next solo exhibition at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery is scheduled for April, 2009.