Robert McAn remembers spending hours on his couch watching tv during the early months of the pandemic.
Right above his TV, a family quilt hung on the wall. The quilt featured an abstract, geometric design made up of light blue, dark purple, beige, gray and black colors.
Looking at the quilt, McAn was inspired.
He looked for other items around his home that held importance to him. He found a print he made in high school in 1976 with a similar abstract design. With the quilt and print in mind, McAn had the building blocks for his latest exhibition, Marking Time, on display at Artspace111 on 111 Hampton St. The exhibition will be on display until June 25.
“I did all this work within about the last eight months,” McAn said. “I just never stopped. The ideas were just flowing one after another. I’d get up at four in the morning and do all this before I went to work.”
McAn created over 50 monotype prints and oil paintings. In printmaking, a monotype is a print that is only made once instead of multiple copies.
McAn combined printed blurry photographs and paint for the larger oil paintings.
“I was taking blurry photographs, deliberately, when I traveled,” McAn said. “I took those and put the paint down in this new way. All of it playing together really well so that the two mediums could speak to each other. You really don’t know that you’re actually looking at a photograph or looking at the paint.”
Born and raised in Fort Worth, McAn has worked as Head of Donor Relations, Membership, and Special Events at the Kimbell Art Museum since 1994. Now he’s a full time working artist.
McAn received both his Bachelor of Arts degree and Master of Fine Arts in painting and photography from the University of North Texas.
His previous shows include his 2011 exhibition, Implied Landscape, at the William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery.
McAn sat down with the Fort Worth Report on camera to dive deeper into the creation of his latest exhibition.
Our new video series showcases local artists across Fort Worth and Tarrant County. It highlights each artist’s career, diving into their inspirations, creative process, artistic style and contributions throughout the city.
David Moreno is a summer fellow multimedia specialist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@forthworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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