Robert McCann. Bell, Eagle & Anchor

About

This group of large-scale artworks portrays an American scene populated by stars of pro wrestling.  The cast of bigger-than-life characters in these wrestling pictures explore territories pitched somewhere between tragic-comedy and comic-tragedy.  Including elements of portraiture, abstraction, personal mythology, and history painting, McCann’s canvases embrace the multiplicity of the medium and an essential human element.  The resulting paint fields are layered, physical, and undemocratically distributed.  McCann treats painting as an external idea space where double readings and tactile material incidents build toward meaning over time.