Mark Gerard McKee
Iconic Series , 2023 – 2025
20-25, 42 x 33 in each
Acrylic and Mixed Mediums on Canvas
What is it about a color that can evoke a sense of awe, even reverence or devotion? How is it that we are fascinated by shapes or enchanted by the sinuous line that not only defines their borders but also imbues them with significance or situates them in space, telling something about that space, perhaps even suggesting meaning, a story, a history or perhaps a hint of things to come?
The Iconic Series is a vehicle for indulging both an infatuation with both formal material qualities of art, as well as a fascination for their relationships to implied or inferred content. The series inhabits an apsidal niche of the Fenestra body of works, and continues that body’s exploration of the intersection of the physical and conceptual. As with Fenestra the Iconic series works within the geometric format of the two-to-one structure and the window as both an architectural as well as conceptual element.
Mark Gerard McKee
Iconic Series sample, 2023 – 2025, 20-25, 42 x 33″ ea., Acrylic and Mixed Mediums on Canvas
These window-like structures are divided into an eight by four grid which is further extended into the surrounding margins. In the case of the latter the idea of the Icon as a window into the nature of the Divine.
Among the objectives are the analysis and synthesis of that which is phenomenal, sensible and measurable along with the experiential qualia, those things that are comprehensible yet intangible, e.g. intention and purpose, meaning and wonder.
As opposed to the traditional horizontal triptych configuration the vertically stacked canvases suggest at once both a transcendence or rational ordering from out of base substance as well as an entropic process, an ultimate return to the primordial stuff from which order arose.
Description
The original impetus for this group are practical demonstrations done for drawing as well as two dimensional design elements course. Initially these demonstrations were executed on a variety of canvas sizes, though eventually 11 x 14 inch canvas panels were settled upon for the triptychs. The Iconic Series incorporates three panels per design oriented horizontally and stacked, creating the majority of the 33 x 14 inch triptychs.
As a (c)atholic Catholic, this author is content that there is the possibility of the coexistence of the Secular with the Sacred as discrete agents by which to negotiate the concrete and conscious universe. As such they are simply different purviews of the same exploratory process of negotiating the universe.
To this end, the upper two panels of each triptych have wide gold, silver or copperish margins referencing religious Icons. The margins surround 8 ½ inch ‘windows. The uppermost panel window rests upon the lower edge of the panel while that on the middle panel hangs from its upper edge. Together the respective upper and middle panel windows when assembled in intended relationship combine to form a unified aperture of two to one proportions, while the margin thus creating an fairly uniform window frame. The third and lowest panel has no margins. Like their true religious counterparts, the triptychs tend to be process driven, being executed in specific stages. The window spaces are divided into four by four grids, combining to the eight by four grids and incorporate either Segmented, equilateral Gothic or Half-round arches, likewise in keeping with parameters of the Fenestra body of works, though some maintain a rectilinear configuration. The grid is also continued into the margins of each and frequently onto the bottom panel of each triptych.
Mark Gerard McKee 