DATE: October 23rd through November 29th, Opening November 1st, 6-8pm
LOCATION: 450 Harrison Ave #309
HOURS: By appointment
We are pleased to announce the opening of Heather McGill’s Beaded Jewels, this is the artist’s 5th exhibition with Ellen Miller Gallery. The exhibition opens October 23rd and runs through November 29th. The gallery will be open for First Friday, November 1 st, from 6-8 pm.
There is no question that Heather McGill’s art is dazzling. The underlying patterns, unique shapes, forceful colors and surprising use of materials all create works of art that both astonish and delight.
Patterns are very important to McGill process, and not just the repetition of commonplace forms inherent in the patterns themselves, such as flowers, spider webs, butterflies to name just a few. The artist’s utilization of mass-produced woven or knitted fabrics as a screen through which she airbrushes the pigment truly transforms the commonplace. These ready-made patterns speak to her deep interest in the extraordinary within the ordinary.
McGill also revels in forms that are familiar but at the same time hard to place. This creates tension around what is both known and obscure. Both the patterning and compositional forms are born from the visual vocabulary of mass production, but then find their unique expression through McGill skillful art-making.
Most spectacular is the artist’s forceful use of color. McGill choice of color may reference a culture or period, primitive or pop, psychedelia or naturalistic. Oftentimes, through the airbrushing process, McGill lets chance guide her color to a place where her skill takes over.
The final and most critical part of McGill’s art is the assemblage of all of these layers. In this current body of work, McGill has chosen color beads and thread to collage all of these stunning parts together. Hand sewn and carefully secured, these delicate reflective jewels are the linchpin of her dazzling works.
Heather McGill received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, but some of her greatest influences were from her earlier studies at UC Davis where she studied with Robert Arneson, Manuel Neri, Roy De Forest, and Wayne Thiebaud. A little further south in California, the Fetish Finish group in Los Angeles also had a significant impact on her work—and especially the Dento series by Billy Al Bengston—particularly regarding her sculptures and work with acrylic plastic. McGill was trained in sculpture, so her hands-on approach with various materials and mechanical processes comes naturally to her. Her artworks, whether three-dimensional or two-dimensional wall pieces, are concerned with the formal properties of “pattern, color, and space”. McGill’s 26-year teaching career at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit where the automation and mass production of automobiles, development of novel plastics, resins and other materials along with the spectacular autobody paint colors and lacquers has had a long-lasting impact on her work and became a recurring theme influencing her processes and work.
Exhibiting in museums and galleries nationally and internationally since 1984, McGill’s artworks have been reviewed in Artforum, Art In America, ART News, ART PAPERS, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe among numerous other publications. Her artworks are included in the permanent collections of Albright Knox, Buffalo, NY, Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, MI, Miami Art Museum, FL, Hood Art Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, The Kresge Art Museum, The Progressive Art Collection, Daimler Chrysler World Headquarters, Auburn Hills, MI, and Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA among numerous other public and private collections.
Concurrent with Beaded Jewels in Boston, Heather McGill will be exhibiting at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Alcove 2020, Oct 19th- December 15th.