Tim McFarlane
"Logical Progression"
July, 2005
Philadelphia, PA – From August 31through September 24, 2005, the Bridgette Mayer Gallery is pleased to present “Logical Progression,” a solo exhibition by Philadelphia painter Tim McFarlane. An opening reception will be held on Friday, September 2, 2005, with an opportunity to meet the artist.
Tim McFarlane is a painter who has always been inspired by the city of Philadelphia and his paintings are often abstractions of sidewalks, grates, intersecting lines, and city buildings. “Logical Progression” is a series of paintings made of up open grid matrices that began with simple lines of colors. In creating his paintings, McFarlane builds the painting surface with lines and creates layers to produce an image of accumulated structures of varying colors and sizes. The structures and markings are constructed and organized in direct response to earlier layers on the painting. The end result is a visual tension from the intermingling of layers of colors and lines; this visual tension reflects McFarlane’s experience of being aware of the multiple dimensions of urban life.
Speaking of his painting technique, McFarlane stated: “This approach allows me to freely explore aspects of aggregation and negation through color, line, mark-making and brushwork. Some of the resulting architectonic and maplike images are purposely overflowing with information, reflecting the multiple layers of my emotional responses to the urban landscapes.”
Describing McFarlane’s recent body of work, independent curator, essayist and critic Lilly Wei notes, “In the most recent examples of this practice, all from 2004 and 2005, McFarlane, a Philadelphia-based artist, has re-considered his syntax, his broad Sean Scully-like stripes and compositions shifting into smaller, laddered units, resulting in more disjunctive, nimble arrangements. Based on modernist grids deconstructed and deracinated, with some of the freedom of graffiti, his proliferating, superimposed systems and webs recall scaffolds, schematized skylines, tenement walls, multi-windowed corporate facades or other, undesignated urban structures.
Clean, complex, with lovely passages of loose brushwork and increasingly assured, McFarlane’s engaging abstractions are urban studies that depict civilization and its contents with humour, irony and above all, invigorating, blissful energy.”
Tim McFarlane received his B.A. from the Tyler School of Art in 1994. He had his last solo exhibition at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery in 2005 and in 2001 was featured in a solo exhibit at the Fleisher Art Memorial during their Challenge Series. In October of 2005, he will be a featured artist at the Affordable Art Fair, NY through the Bridgette Mayer Gallery.
“Logical Progression” will run through September 24, 2005. The artist will be present at the opening reception on Friday, September 2 from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Wednesday-Saturday 11:00 to 5:30 p.m., and on other days by appointment. For additional information, please contact Bridgette Mayer 215.413.8893, Fax 215.413.2283.###