Dan McCarthy Calvary

January 11 – February 20 2011

Poor art longs to explain itself simply.

The drawings in “Calvary” are made from watercolor on gessoed newsprint. A series of long vertical and horizontal bands of small, quickly rendered faces ordered and sequenced, these works serve as impressions of emotions and states.

Similar in spirit to cartoons for medieval tapestries, these works reconfigure domestic and social symbols through pattern, scale and form in order to reiterate the potential of sublime moments in the common place of the everyday.

The narrative in “Calvary” is circuitous to a point, leaving room for interpretation as indicated by wet into wet bleeds of red and blue ink.

The frames become vessels containing and literally structuring the narrative.

Dan McCarthy has exhibited internationally and his work has been included in such shows as “If the Dogs are Barking,” Artist Space, New York; “Saltwater,” Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden, “Today’s Man,” John Connelly Presents, New York; and “Paintings By the Sea,” Kate MacGarry, London. Past projects with the journal include “Sea of Love,” an interview with Damien McRae Ryan Nevin for the journal 11 (2003), and Dan McCarthy (2007), a book co-published by Anton Kern Gallery and The Journal Books. McCarthy’s work has been included in several exhibitions at The Journal Gallery, including the recent show “SALAD DAYS.” Born in Honolulu, McCarthy lives and works in Brooklyn and is represented by Anton Kern Gallery.