Exhibition - Heather McGill: Flower Market

Ellen Miller Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Heather McGill's exhibition "Flower Market". It will open Friday March 29th and run through May 4th

More often than not, viewers are truly astonished by Heather McGill's paintings. Her surfaces are extraordinary in their complexity and in their resolve. Her compositions are loaded with patterns richly embedded with color. Every layer of pigment is like a gateway into yet another underlying pattern or hidden color, carefully leading the viewer back in time to the very inception of each stunning work of art.

My current paintings are crafted using an accumulation of cast patterns and layer upon layer of sprayed pigment. Once a level of pattern density and color saturation is achieved, the surface is mechanically sanded. The sanding process both erases and retains visual information. What is lost in the process is the evidence of a sequential order in the application of color and pattern. What remains on the surface is a fragmented record of my labor and a collage of image residue.

The viewer is compelled to explore McGill's rich surfaces as if mining for cultural remains in an archeological dig. And what fascinating cultures one might discover embedded there, from '60s Flower Power, Detroit car customizers, Jo-Ann Fabric showroom to Alexander McQueen couture.

My imagery is primarily derived from everyday textiles found in fabric stores. These fabrics are mass produced, endlessly duplicated and marketed for women’s apparel, of which stylized floral patterns are the most popular genre. I have used floral patterns as foreground and background imagery for over twenty-five years. I was initially inspired by car customizers, who in the 1960’s transferred floral patterns to the hood of their cars by spraying lacquer through women’s lingerie lace. This simple gesture forever fused the female body with the automotive, intertwining mass production, masculine projection and female representation.

While McGill's stunning work invites the viewer to get lost in the details, its built-up structural layers force us to stand back and experience its sheer presence. For McGill, a single flat panel does not suffice, rather she creates a painted runway around her work, a spatial frame, that articulates the entirety of her process. Her paintings enter the realm of sculpture as McGill continues her patterning on every edge that she creates. When fully viewed, we appreciated McGill's mastery of both the micro and macro elements of her dazzling painted creations.

My education and background as a sculptor is significant to the process of the recent paintings, as I feel they are"built" objects, rather than image based.

Heather McGill lived in the Detroit suburbs for over two decades, where she headed the Sculpture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art. The city’s industrial heritage, specifically the automotive industry and Ford’s philosophy of mass production continues to influence her artistic practice. She learned to paint at a custom auto body shop while living in Michigan and continues to apply pigment using this method. A native to the west coast, her work is infused with the regional influence of southern California’s surf and custom car culture.

McGill was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 1999 and a Kresge Artist Fellowship in 2011. McGill has received grants for both permanent and temporary installations from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation, California Arts Council and San Francisco Arts Council. Her work is included in many private and public collections including the U.S Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, Sprint, Albright-Knox Gallery, Fidelity, the Progressive Art Collection, Wellington Management, Compuware Corporation, the Hood Art Museum, The Exploratorium Science Museum and the Detroit Institute of the Arts. She lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.