James Fuentes LLC is pleased to announce John McAllister’s forthcoming exhibition In his debut solo exhibition at the gallery last year, McAllister presented a series of paintings of fire focused on the rendering of force and light. Large and intensely colored, they were intended to consume the viewer. These new paintings are the opposite. Small in scale, still and delicate, they are downright frivolous.

For this series, McAllister creates an aesthetic world around a hybrid McAllister/Matisse figure. Here he is focused on updating Matisse and his “monumental” decorative art. This hybrid figure, let’s call him “Alistair McAllister” renders Alistair’s painter’s studio, his still-life work, even the decorations on his wall and the abstractions that inspire him. The resultant paintings become elements of one series, and are all allowed the same level of meaning. The panache of this alter ego speaks directly to forceful qualities of Matisse’s style doctrine.John McAllister, born in Slidell, Louisiana, is an artist based in Los Angeles. A 2007 MFA graduate of Art Center College of Design, he is a Joan Mitchell Grand Award