The oil paintings of Marcelyn McNeil weave through dualities the artist handles with virtuosity: organic and hard-edge, painterly and flat matte, austerity and humor. The tension created by these balances and the looming forms read simply but enable the chance to engage slowly within the macro-view of the composition and the micro-view of the palimpsest layers. Spare and deliberate forms interfold with soft pours to invite contemplation. White oxide takes on a dominant role in the palette and there is a deep push toward thinning and pouring oil paint. Each thin layer on the raw canvas becoming a luminous veil to deeply sensuous effect.

Recent small canvas works are both painted and sewn with the thread line becoming an elegant structural element where masked paint lines and vivid pops of color interplay. The use of various fabrics: rayon, burlap and linen, combine to enhance the textural variations within the architecture of each picture plane.

Born in Kansas Marcelyn McNeil earned an MFA from the University of Illinois, Chicago. McNeil’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas and the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas. A monograph, Marcelyn McNeil Works, was published by Radius Books in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2022. Included in the book are writings by Hesse McGraw, Executive Director at CAM Houston in Texas, and Alison Hearst, a curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas. McNeil currently lives and works in Dallas, Texas.

https://marcelynmcneil.com/

Conduit Gallery Exhibitions

• Lime in de Coconut
• Briefly Gorgeous
• Hot Damn
• Slow Eddy
• Per Diem
• Love & Theft
• Longitude/Latitude Part II
• reshuffle
• Recent Paintings