Exhibition Information

Lacey McKinney: Recent Works
August 29-October 7, 2016

"I use painting, drawing and photographic media as a vehicle to explore ideas? about perception. My works are reflections on the concept of embodiment and the complexity and wonder of time, space, memory and narrative of self.

Old print ephemera and images of people I know or have briefly met are passed through several iterations of paintings and photographs before a piece arrives at its final state. The canvas surfaces are stained, painted, bleached and sometimes light sensitive emulsion is brushed on in vigorous, gestural strokes. The way in which the images are transmuted produces visual marks that suggest dissolution and change. Some of them seem to be fading away like a forgotten experience.

I find that dualities that contradict each other also fold into one another. For example, past and future exist as a cognitive model through contrast. They are distinct, yet symmetrical. Other opposites, such as embodiment and disembodiment, merge together since one could not conceptually exist without the other. As I work, I think about such paradoxes.

I’m also interested in the human instinct to categorize. When we first encounter someone, we make instant judgments based? on gender, age, social context, and our own experiences. We naturally look for individual distinction and value biographical information, spending our lives building a picture of who we are. My works defy the categorization impulse by presenting ambiguous figures that detach from their original identifiers. These pieces communicate the nature of longing through mystery, marks of struggle and a nebulous quality. They exist in the familiar tropes of portraiture but also purposefully contradict some key aspects of the tradition. Instead of marking time, they conjure the essence of time."

-Lacey McKinney 

Lacey McKinney is an instructor in the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Finger Lakes Community College. She received a B.F.A. and M.A. from SUNY Oswego and an M.F.A. from SUNY New Paltz.