Heraldic forms occupy center stage. They are playful if not exuberant in their monumentality. Accessible and uncomplicated, they are familiar and Modern. Their effect is hypnotic. They invite the viewer to slip into a jet stream of awareness and contemplation. Though their forms suggest the pure, timeless, and universal themes of Constantin Brancusi and Kazmir Malevich, they coexist without fanfare, as the artist writes, with wiggles and drips. These wiggles and drips anchor the otherwise soaring work in the imperfect present. The work communicates seamlessly between this flawless eternal and a dense, progressive, and challenging present.
There are precedents. Like abstract Tantric painters from Rajasthan, India, McMullen uses simple forms as a portal to meditation, towards awareness and possibility. His use of blue, for instance, references abstract Tantric painting’s use of the color to represent benevolent universal consciousness. At the same time, it alludes to the complicated if not misguided, even menacing associations that Scientology's West Coast headquarters (Big Blue) in Hollywood represent.
The work in this exhibition turns simple ideas of progress on their head. Its references and functions are not linear, they’re simultaneous. Most certainly Here but also part of a much bigger story, namely, Somewhere Else.
Hold Edges
Interlude
Muted
Reprise
Somewhere Else
To Appear
Here
The exhibition opens at 6 PM on Saturday, March 9. The South Pasadena Arts Council Gallery (SPARC) hours are 10 AM - 5 PM, Tuesday through Friday, or by appointment. The gallery is located at 1121 Mission Street, South Pasadena, CA, 91030. For more information on the artist and on the South Pasadena Arts Council, click here and here.