For his third solo exhibition at the Kristof De Clercq gallery, American artist Jeff McMillan (b. 1968) presents recent oil paintings on linen alongside a series of watercolours on found paper.
Soil Under Pavement Dreams of Grass is derived from the final line of a poem by American writer Wendell Berry, who describes himself as a ‘farmer of sorts and an artist of sorts’.
McMillan hangs his monochrome oil paintings on an exterior studio wall overlooking his vegetable garden, where they remain for several years exposed to weather and pollution, and become subject to the daily lives of snails, birds, and even urban foxes. Nature in all its messy unpredictability is as much the creator of the work as the artist himself. McMillan has spoken of waiting years for each painting to evolve until they become ‘ripe’ or ready to be exhibited, a recognition of the symbiosis of culture and nature.
What’s more, the paintings are images of passing time. McMillan’s work raises the question: What happens when we just let things be?
In contrast to these durational paintings, the artist will show an ongoing series of watercolour paintings on found paper made while travelling, in hotel rooms, friend’s houses, or on holiday, since 2015. Each work literally takes its form from a found object in a specific place, collectively comprising a sort of memory/travel journal.
