Untitled, 2005
Oil on canvas 48 × 60 inches
Colin McLain
April 1 - April 30, 2005
Opening Reception: Friday April 1, 6-8pm
Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present a series of new paintings by Colin McLain. This exhibition will be McLain's second solo show with Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery. He made his New York solo debut with the gallery in 2003.
"Like the psycho killer in the rote horror film, whether slashed, burned, or hacked to bits, painting constantly self-resuscitates. This group of paintings puns the medium's continual death and resurrection.
Veritable Frankensteins, these pieces are stitched together composites of old school skateboard logos and details culled from my earlier work. The skulls and guts of skateboard graphics are fused with neon explorations of human physiognomy.
Like any good reanimater, I pick through the best body parts of history to invest these creations with life: The vibrant color of neo-geo, the drippy gesture of ab-ex, the sexy gloss of silkscreen, the beautiful matte of minimalism. From the confines of flatness these pictures twist, squirm, and bulge. They stare back from their entombment in abstraction.
Painting is dead, appropriation likewise. The only thing to do is anxiously hold your breath, waiting for them to leap from the lake. Or have lighting strike and throw the switch."