Patrick Mcgarry

Painting starts in very personal ways. What is my relationship to the subject matter? How do I translate that relationship into paint. My work addresses the tension between what is near, earthly and pressing contrasted with what is remote and its suggestion of the hereafter. I paint what I had seen, edit elements, emphasize what I desire to bring into prominence all with the goal of translating into paint what I have felt. Like most artwork, my paintings address the passage of time. From cave paintings to the latest work, art is an attempt to impose the present into the future. My images are all analogies for someone, someplace or some incident and every subject has its own criteria.
Painting requires an enormous amount of faith, the belief that a blank canvas, pigments, oils can add up to something significant. That a painting is capable of connecting to the expanse of human experience. A painter must believe this. On the other hand, you have to understand that we live in a culture where painting does not hold the power it once did. There is a deep longing and attempt at creating an object of meaning, and at the same time a self-consciousness in recognizing the possible absurdity and waste of that attempt. Ultimately, you ha...

1994 BFA Rhode Island School of Design
1997 MFA University of Illinois
200 JD DePaul University School of Law,