Sam McKinniss: Country Western

About

"Country Western" is McKinniss’s second solo show with Almine Rech, following Neverland, presented in Brussels in 2019. Best known for painting celebrity subjects, McKinniss now turns his attention to the starry world of popular country music, the genre derived from rural American custom, including small town vernacular speech, fashion, landscape, and musical forms. The exhibition will present new portraits of singers Lyle Lovett, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, Tammy Wynette, and others. Country Western will not only highlight the artist’s continued efforts as a skilled portraitist, but also as an accomplished colorist.

Sam McKinniss was born in Minnesota but now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. In his figurative painting, in which he works from photographs, found images and primarily online image searching, McKinniss has developed a symbolist vocabulary for contemporary figurative painting, with subjects including a wide range of celebrities, such as Diana Princess of Wales, Prince and Madonna as well as fictional film and television characters such as Edward Scissorhands and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Interested in moments of unexpected emotional conflict, aggression and sexuality, defensiveness and vulnerability, pathos and humour, the artist, without cynicism, portrays seemingly disparate pop cultural icons in his fluent painterly style.