September 20, 2018
Jerry McMillan
Photographic Works
Craig Krull Gallery
September 8 - October 13, 2018
Jerry McMillan, Untitled #1, (2016) and Untiled #9, (2014)
Jerry McMillan has had a long, diverse career as an artist: melding photography and sculpture as well as making documentary style photographs. His childhood friends, Ed Ruscha and Joe Goode, with whom he traveled from Oklahoma to California in the late 1950s to attend Chouinard Institute, appear in many of his black and white photographs that document the Los Angeles art scene in the 60s and 70s. In addition to insightful candid images of his artist friends, McMillan was also an avid experimenter— integrating photographs into sculptures, as well as creating non objective abstractions.
McMillan's recent photographic explorations — large-scale archival pigment prints created between 2011 and 2016 — are untitled abstract color images of paper that has been painted or drawn on and then torn. Each image not only plays with photographic illusion and tromp l'oeil, but also is an investigation of color relationships, akin to the color studies created by Josef Albers. Surprisingly, as McMillan's process is revealed, the pictures become more intriguing as if this just the beginning of a deeper conversation about relationships between light/shadow and figure/ground. These simple, yet structurally complex studies are most satisfying to regard. What at first glance seems like an easy formal exercise, is in fact a playful and thoughtful exploration of expectation and surprise, taking advantage of the cameras unique way of flattening space.
It is possible to imagine McMillan beginning with a thick piece of blank paper smaller than the size of the final photographs but not tiny. The paper is carefully painted or covered with line on both sides because McMillan knowingly will reveal fragments of the verso as cut and torn shapes excised to reveal a black space beyond the picture plane. In Untitled #1, (2016) the surface of the paper has been painted a deep rusty orange. McMillan leaves small traces of paint scattered across the page and allows his brush strokes to show in order to disrupt the evenness of the surface and give the painted field depth. In contrast to the orange frontside, McMillan paints the back as a melange of primary colors. Two holes, one large toward the bottom, the other small near the top, have been punched through the paper from the back. McMillan carefully peels forward the paper around these holes, like the edges of a bullet hole or wound, which reveals the more colorful backside. The paper object is photographed against a black ground so that the torn hole becomes something unexpected —a void or a deep abyss.
In Untitled #9, (2014), the composition is divided along the diagonal into light and dark blue triangular sections. Beginning at the top edge, McMillan has scored and then torn a narrow strip of the paper along the diagonal, which dangles down near the center of the composition. Surprisingly, the paper has a blue backside and light edges (the actual unpainted paper). The torn strip casts a dark (yet another deeper tone of blue), rough-edged shadow from a deliberately placed light source. A similar relationship is created in Untitled #6, (2014), where a black hole is centered in a grass green ground. Here McMillan folds forward an oblong shape so it hinges at the bottom of the hole. This green flap, like the hole, is surrounded by light torn edges. A shadow about the size of the hole is cast on the green surface below the flap of torn paper. This hole becomes a deep impenetrable black void, which draws the eye. Both Untitled # 2, (2016) and Untiled #11, (2015) are photographs of grey-toned paper that has been partially covered with scribbled pencil lines. A shape has been cut or torn from the paper and rolled or folded forward providing access to a black emptiness.
No matter what the shape or color of the painted ground, in each of these works, McMillan is playing with perceived and fabricated depth. The pieces while flat, also have illusionistic depth. What is intriguing about McMillan's abstractions is that they are simultaneously simple and complex. They illustrate a basic property of photography— how constructed (and actual three dimensional) space becomes flat when presented on the two-dimensional picture plane.
Photographic Works
Craig Krull Gallery
September 8 - October 13, 2018
Jerry McMillan, Untitled #1, (2016) and Untiled #9, (2014)
Jerry McMillan has had a long, diverse career as an artist: melding photography and sculpture as well as making documentary style photographs. His childhood friends, Ed Ruscha and Joe Goode, with whom he traveled from Oklahoma to California in the late 1950s to attend Chouinard Institute, appear in many of his black and white photographs that document the Los Angeles art scene in the 60s and 70s. In addition to insightful candid images of his artist friends, McMillan was also an avid experimenter— integrating photographs into sculptures, as well as creating non objective abstractions.
McMillan's recent photographic explorations — large-scale archival pigment prints created between 2011 and 2016 — are untitled abstract color images of paper that has been painted or drawn on and then torn. Each image not only plays with photographic illusion and tromp l'oeil, but also is an investigation of color relationships, akin to the color studies created by Josef Albers. Surprisingly, as McMillan's process is revealed, the pictures become more intriguing as if this just the beginning of a deeper conversation about relationships between light/shadow and figure/ground. These simple, yet structurally complex studies are most satisfying to regard. What at first glance seems like an easy formal exercise, is in fact a playful and thoughtful exploration of expectation and surprise, taking advantage of the cameras unique way of flattening space.
It is possible to imagine McMillan beginning with a thick piece of blank paper smaller than the size of the final photographs but not tiny. The paper is carefully painted or covered with line on both sides because McMillan knowingly will reveal fragments of the verso as cut and torn shapes excised to reveal a black space beyond the picture plane. In Untitled #1, (2016) the surface of the paper has been painted a deep rusty orange. McMillan leaves small traces of paint scattered across the page and allows his brush strokes to show in order to disrupt the evenness of the surface and give the painted field depth. In contrast to the orange frontside, McMillan paints the back as a melange of primary colors. Two holes, one large toward the bottom, the other small near the top, have been punched through the paper from the back. McMillan carefully peels forward the paper around these holes, like the edges of a bullet hole or wound, which reveals the more colorful backside. The paper object is photographed against a black ground so that the torn hole becomes something unexpected —a void or a deep abyss.
In Untitled #9, (2014), the composition is divided along the diagonal into light and dark blue triangular sections. Beginning at the top edge, McMillan has scored and then torn a narrow strip of the paper along the diagonal, which dangles down near the center of the composition. Surprisingly, the paper has a blue backside and light edges (the actual unpainted paper). The torn strip casts a dark (yet another deeper tone of blue), rough-edged shadow from a deliberately placed light source. A similar relationship is created in Untitled #6, (2014), where a black hole is centered in a grass green ground. Here McMillan folds forward an oblong shape so it hinges at the bottom of the hole. This green flap, like the hole, is surrounded by light torn edges. A shadow about the size of the hole is cast on the green surface below the flap of torn paper. This hole becomes a deep impenetrable black void, which draws the eye. Both Untitled # 2, (2016) and Untiled #11, (2015) are photographs of grey-toned paper that has been partially covered with scribbled pencil lines. A shape has been cut or torn from the paper and rolled or folded forward providing access to a black emptiness.
No matter what the shape or color of the painted ground, in each of these works, McMillan is playing with perceived and fabricated depth. The pieces while flat, also have illusionistic depth. What is intriguing about McMillan's abstractions is that they are simultaneously simple and complex. They illustrate a basic property of photography— how constructed (and actual three dimensional) space becomes flat when presented on the two-dimensional picture plane.