John McAllister

In John McAllister’s dazzling new paintings the heat has been turned up, colour relationships pushed and light brought to a new shimmering intensity. The temperate foliage in the landscapes remains familiar but the hues are almost Tahitian and the unreal pink and purple skies of otherwise quotidian settings take our eye on a journey to anything but an ordinary place.

Whilst McAllister takes the common place genres of landscape, interior and still life and makes them one imaginary space, in each painting one genre predominates. In the interiors the starring roles go to baskets, dishes, fruits, flowers, chairs, tables, and windows. At first glance these interiors give the impression of contentment and ordinary domestic life. Tables laid with fruit and drinking glasses, potted plants and a book just read suggest domestic ease. But there is more at play here. The adjoining cut-and-paste areas of patterned surfaces (are they laid underneath or over the top?), the urgent bursts of a fuller range of colour against a barely varying monochromatic palette, give these shimmering visions something closer to a dream.

The strange luminosity of the landscapes is likewise otherworldly.  As is the use and inversion of hot and cold hues somewhat like those that occur when strong sunlight breaks through and coexists during the darkness of a storm, or similarly found in colour photographic negatives. These unfamiliar colour relationships that take place throughout the canvas rectangle bring tension and animate the paintings, taking us on a journey through illusionary space.

John McAllister (b. 1973, Louisiana, USA) studied at Art Center College of Design, LA (2007) and University of Texas, Austin (1999). He lives and works in Massachusetts, USA. Recent and forthcoming solo shows include Hagiwara Projects, Japan (2015), James Fuentes, New York (2014) and Richard Telles, Los Angeles (2012). Group shows include Le Consortium, Paris (2014), Shane Campbell, Chicago (2014), Zach Feuer, New York (2014) and Mary Mary, Glasgow (2014). This is his second solo show at the gallery.