Our digital magazine explains it all, especially the seminal supernova played by Viborg's Henrik Holmskov. Here's the full chronicle:
https://issuu.com/accordingtomcgee/docs/york_s_bar_convent_draws_with_denmark
Here are a few images, a selection of pages from a succulent little tome. We're looking forward to similar exhibitions in the future. We are as we speak a gallery without walls, but that won't be the case forever.
Onwards!
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You helped us when we first started with a warm wisdom and ready wit, two qualities which have since set us in good stead on the choppy waters of the creative industries. We continue to be grateful to you for that. We wish we'd pushed to see more of you at the end, but your lovely family had you in their arms when you needed them, and we're reassured that you died knowing how beloved you were.
Rest in Peace, now, friend.
Love Ails and Greg
x
Here's a tribute and details on how to buy Patrick's novel: patrickjkelly.muchloved.com
Here's a salute from his AI co-editor, Simon Tait:
https://artsindustry.co.uk/news/3152-patrick-kelly-1955-2023
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Exhibition spaces have included Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre, OLQM, and Blueberry Academy.
At a time when traditional models for galleries are changing and intersecting we plan to build on the groundswell of energy we have harnessed in 2023: it is the art of young people for young people that we hope will lead the way into the next year, with plenty of space for the art of established artists too.
Onwards!
]]>York art gallery According to McGee enjoyed a ‘blazing return to business’ after a 8 month sabbatical with a successful exhibition at globally celebrated ‘Affordable Art Fair Hampstead’.
"It was a brightly coloured reminder why we need to celebrate art as gallerists", says Greg McGee, "We’d spent months visiting galleries. York Art Gallery was a great touchstone, as were locations further afield. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Middlesbrough's MIMA, even trips to Belfast's thriving independent art galleries gave us a much needed shot in the arm. The York experience can at times be a little insular, both from a purveyors' and consumers' point of view, so the idea of re energising ourselves made perfect sense.”
It was with this outward looking instinct that the McGees, Ails and Greg, have focused energies on Affordable Art Fair Hampstead. "We wanted to stretch our curatorial wings outside of Yorkshire," says Ails, "The Affordable Art Fair is a whole different level of quality and serious collecting. They now hold fairs in 10 cities around the world including London, New York, Hong Kong, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels, Singapore, Stockholm, Melbourne and Sydney. They are dedicated to sharing the importance of loving art, and, when possible, collecting it. On a micro-level, that's what we do too. So we approached them and they accepted us, and the rest is history. The most important aspect, however, was finding the right artists.”
According to McGee's final exhibition opposite Clifford's Tower, ( see https://fb.watch/jpif4qmZM4/ ), was a celebration of 3 painters Richard Barnes, Chantal Barnes, and Frya Horsley, and their then current collections.
Richard Barnes, who moved from York in 2020, brought his new collection to a wider audience. Says Richard, "For 17 years I worked on painting York in new ways. The concept of the cityscape was there to be pulled and played with, and the iconic visuals of York was perfect for that - being cheeky, being innovative, reinventing. Now it feels right to focus on London. There are so many stories, so many layers of history to capture. I'm really pleased with this collection, and it was great to reveal them at Hampstead with According to McGee."
Chantal, Richard's daughter, is an increasingly collectible painter with collections already gracing international walls and a rapidly emerging reputation of a well regarded artist. This was her first time at an Art Fair. "The vigour with which Chantal pushes paint around is exciting and relevant and indicative of where contemporary painting is today. Both Chantal and Richard have studios not far too apart, and sometimes they even collaborate on the same piece. There’s a wonderful synergy between the two of them, whether that happens to be on the same canvas or two canvases in close proximity, and this show was an exciting opportunity to witness that.”
Freya Horsley created new collections for the exhibition. She says, "Whilst the internet makes artists and galleries increasingly global in their reach, the Affordable Art Fair was an exciting because it's absolutely about seeing real artwork up close and in person. The physical presence of a painting and the way it can change a space is increasingly exciting. Working towards the fair gave me a really strong focus and an opportunity to make big impactful pieces as well as smaller more affordable paintings . Alongside Richard and Chantal, I feel we reached a new audience in this prestigious setting.'’
Ails McGee is keen to build on the success. "The future’s bright. Going forward, this is going to be about more than sales. The amount of global attention each Affordable Art Fair receives is simply huge, and we're looking forward to bringing some of that gold dust back to when we reopen a gallery space in York.”
"It's this progressive, outward looking energy that I think serves York so well," says Greg, "Us looking outwards to bring back energy and calibre is what in essence a heritage city like York is obliged to do at this moment in time, for all kinds of reasons. Unless you want to become Beamish, history only works when you have one foot firmly planted in an innovative future. And rather than being a footnote in the annals of York's creative scene, we would much prefer to be part of the future than the past. The art of Richard Barnes, Chantal Barnes, and Freya Horsley has always flown the flag for what contemporary painting can do, and we're excited as to what this new approach can bring."
According to McGee brings Chantal Barnes, Richard Barnes, and Freya Horsley to Affordable Art Fair Hampstead 2023
This is an shortened version of an article which first appeared in Charles Hutchinson's online blog: https://charleshutchpress.co.uk/york-gallery-according-to-mcgee-exhibits-richard-and-chantal-barnes-and-freya-horsley-at-affordable-art-fair-hampstead/
York art gallery According to McGee is making plans for a return to business after a 7 month sabbatical. "We've been busy reminding ourselves why we need to celebrate art as gallerists", says Greg McGee, "York Art Gallery has been a great touchstone, as have locations further afield. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Middlesbrough's MIMA, even last week's trip to Belfast's thriving independent art galleries gave us a much needed shot in the arm. The York experience can at times be a little insular, both from a purveyors' and consumers' point of view, so we've been getting out and coming back feeling re-energised."
Greg and Ails McGee outside their former According To McGee gallery in Tower Street, York. Relocation plans are ongoing
It is with this outward looking instinct that the McGees, Ails and Greg, have focused their energies on Affordable Art Fair Hampstead. "We wanted to stretch our curatorial wings outside of Yorkshire," says Ails, "The Affordable Art Fair is a whole different level of quality and serious collecting. They now hold fairs in 10 cities around the world including London, New York, Hong Kong, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels, Singapore, Stockholm, Melbourne and Sydney. They are dedicated to sharing the importance of loving art, and, when possible, collecting it. On a micro-level, that's what we do too. So we approached them and they accepted us, and we're looking forward to exhibiting with them in Hampstead in May this year."
In gallant company: we're with the top UK and international galleries exhibiting at the 2023 edition of Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, 11 - 14 Mayhttps://affordableartfair.com/fairs/london-hampstead/exhibitors/
Though the McGees are purposely basing this latest chapter of their gallery's evolution outside of York, it's a cohort of artists with strong links to York that is leading the way. "At this stage of our career and with this specific project, it's important for us to work closely with artists we actually personally like!" laughs Ails, "So we're handing our exhibition space over to Richard Barnes, Chantal Barnes, and Freya Horsley. The three of them have a painterly synergy that has been hugely successful for us in the past, and will help steady the ship as we sail into unknown waters."
Richard Barnes with one of his new metropolitan artworks after his move south from York
According to McGee's final exhibition opposite Clifford's Tower, ( see https://fb.watch/jpif4qmZM4/ ), was a celebration of all 3 painters and their then current collections. Will the Affordable Art Fair exhibition provide an opportunity for international visitors to enjoy what art lovers in York have been able to experience, namely 3 seascape and cityscape painters who have been well regarded for years? "That's a good question," says Greg, "And the answer helps us distill what we do best. We celebrate contemporary painters, painters who relentlessly evolve, and yearn for the next chapter. It's not in the nature of any of our painters, especially Richard, Chantal, and Freya, to fossilize their output and become complacent. Their current compositions and mark making have all the experimental derring do of white hot graduates out of a world class art school with points to prove and paintings to sell. You don't get to sell as well as these three, nor do you get invited to exhibit at a globally recognised art event such as Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, without having something exciting and relevant to say."
Richard, who moved from York in 2020, is excited to bring his new collection to a wider audience. Says Richard, "For 17 years I worked on painting York in new ways. The concept of the cityscape was there to be pulled and played with, and the iconic visuals of York was perfect for that - being cheeky, being innovative, reinventing. Now it feels right to focus on London. There are so many stories, so many layers of history to capture. I'm really pleased with this collection, and I'm looking forward to revealing them at Hampstead with According to McGee."
Richard Barnes with two of his new metropolitan artworks after his move south from York
Chantal, Richard's daughter, is an increasingly collectible painter with collections already gracing international walls and a rapidly emerging reputation of a well regarded artist. This is her first time at an Art Fair. "The vigour with which Chantal pushes paint around is exciting and relevant and indicative of where contemporary painting is today. Both Chantal and Richard have studios not far too apart, and sometimes they even collaborate on the same piece. There’s a wonderful synergy between the two of them, whether that happens to be on the same canvas or two canvases in close proximity, and this show is an exciting opportunity to witness that.”
Chantal Barnes and Richard Barnes: According To McGee regulars heading for next month’s Affordable Art Fair Hampstead in London
Freya Horsley has been working on new collections for the exhibition. She says, " Whilst the internet makes artists and galleries increasingly global in their reach, the Affordable Art Fair is exciting because it's absolutely about seeing real artwork up close and in person. This is something that Greg and Ails have always celebrated and promoted in their York gallery - the physical presence of a painting and the way it can change a space. Working towards the fair has given me a really strong focus and an opportunity to make big impactful pieces as well as smaller more affordable paintings which is part of the rationale of the AAF. Alongside Richard and Chantal, I'm looking forward to showing our work to a new audience in this prestigious setting.'’
Gallery director with internationally well regarded painter Freya Horsley
Ails McGee is keen to build on this latest stage. "This is going to be about more than sales. The amount of global attention each Affordable Art Fair receives is simply huge, and we're looking forward to bringing some of that gold dust back home when we relocate in York."
AFFORDABLE Art Fair Hampstead presents contemporary art from 100 London, UK and international galleries from May 11 to 14 at Lower Fairground Site, Hampstead Heath, London. Works are for sale at £50 to £7,500.
Visitors can enjoy an art-filled day out with installations, curated displays, rising star artists from University of the Arts, London and Jackson’s Painting Prize, plus bars and cafés. Expert advice is available from the fair’s new art consultancy service “to help make finding your dream artwork a breeze”.
Opening hours are: May 11, general admission, 11am to 5pm; Late View, 5pm to 9pm. May 12, 11am to 5pm, Art After Dark Late View, 5pm to 9pm. May 13 and 14, general admission, 11am to 6pm; Weekend Family Hour, 11am to 12 noon. Tickets: https://affordableartfair.com/fairs/london-hampstead
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Installation in support of Ukraine and those suffering at the hands of war to highlight the Christmas message of ‘Peace of Earth’
As featured in The Times, The Guardian, i-Newspaper, The Telegraph, The Yorkshire Post, and York Press.
Bar Convent 17 Blossom St, York YO24 1AQ Closes 4PM
Contemporary culture is complicated, and as the West's luxuries multiply, so do the approvals and disregard of the culture in which these luxuries are inculcated and celebrated. One man's Twitter is another man's echo chamber, indeed one man's man is another person's fluid continuum, but that one is for another blog. Here I want to flag up the Johnny Depp collage from our Urban artist, Colin Brown.
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As the McGees leave Tower Street, Ails and Greg McGee look back on a selection of highlights. The video links found herein give succour to their bombast.
‘It’s Good But is it Art?’ 2006
“It was our second year as a gallery. York Theatre Royal was getting ready to run Reza’s Art in which one of a group of 3 friends purchases a blank white canvas to hang on his wall, leading to all kinds of existential debate. We were asked to contribute to their promo theatre booklet but we thought we’d go further and run a series of exhibitions which asked of our visitors ‘Is this Art?’ It gave us a good chance to distill our ambitions to an irreducible manifesto as well as work with a huge array of local artists. Ultimately though it proved to us as gallerists that we were a gallery in which Contemporary Painting was going to be our priority. It opened the door to Richard Barnes, who really helped us in the early days harness exactly what kind of space we wanted to be.”
“The ‘Is it Art’ show was great. We launched it with a Private View that hammered home what we were all about in the early days, which was much more about creating events and having packed parties than selling paintings. Guests included actors Stuart Organ, Andrew Dunn, Daniel Hill, we had Lord Mayors and Sheriffs, rock bands ‘Death Cigarettes’ performed. York was great back then with a real vibrant scene.”
James McKay, Tom Wright, Greg McGee, Milladdio, Ails McGee at the launch of 'It's Good But is it Art?'
‘New York, YOU York’, Dollarsandart featuring Sir Ian Botham, 2015
“Dubai celebrity artist Jim Wheat of Dollarsandart had already encouraged a groundswell of interest in Dubai and USA. It was thrilling to welcome him to York for an inaugural solo show, and having it officially opened by Sir Ian Botham was an added bonus.”
Ails remembers Beefy Botham’s time in the gallery fondly. “He was lovely, we talked a lot about the Scottish Borders and my hometown, Kelso. He also collaborated on painting a canvas with Jim, which went on to auction.”
Sir Ian Botham enjoyed his day in York. "It was a great pleasure to open Jim's show supporting New Visuality. I was impressed with how he'd developed his work, and I recommended 'New York, YOU York' at According to McGee.”
https://vimeo.com/133422683
Ails McGee with The Lord Botham OBE at the launch of Dollarsandart's ‘New York, YOU York’
Hello there! Banksy, Grayson Perry, Vic Reeves, and Dscreet
“It was just before the pandemic, a collector friend of ours donated world class art including pieces by heavy weights Banksy, Vic Reeves, Grayson Perry, and Dscreet. We thought we’d launch it as we would any other exhibition, but this art was just so instantly collectible, it sold straight away via phone calls.”
“It was a weekend event that was over too soon,” says Ails, “It was a shot in the arm in that it brought us to a wider audience and reminded us that investing in globally collectible art is a serious business.”
Greg McGee with a framed Banksy at 'Hello There!'
‘The Beano is 80!’ Horace Panter, 2018
Ska-legend Horace Panter provided the Pop Art and star quality and the gallery caused an international splash with kickstarting the 80th birthday celebrations of ‘The Beano’.
Says Greg, “It was a very lighthearted exhibition, but there was no mistaking the characters' punk credentials. Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx were disruptors before Johnny Rotten was born! And to have Horace Panter, who was so instrumental in kickstarting ska-punk with The Specials, mediate the characters through his own Pop Art filter was hugely exciting, relevant, and irreverent. We had Dennis and Gnasher diving into Hockney's LA swimming pool, Minnie the Minx as a Warholian starlet and Lord Snooty a Lichenstein frame, complete with Ben Day dots. The Bash Street Kids invaded the high art world of Koons and Hirst. Collectors from all over the UK attended the opening and we sold massive Originals and more Limited Editions than Gnasher has had sausages.”
Video: https://vimeo.com/manage/
Greg and Ails McGee with Special's bassist and Pop Artist Horace Panter
‘Text, Technology, Disability & Art’, The Print Project, 2016
According to McGee employed its charitable arm to multifaceted effect in an exhibition which garnered them an award (Best Cultural Event) at the inaugural ‘York Culture Awards in 2016.
“We won in a pitch held at a Digital Innovation Fund GeniUS event the most cutting edge kit in its field: Ideum's ‘Platform 46’,” says Ails, “We set about building an algorithm based programme that allowed via magnetic words allowing learners at Blueberry Academy to concoct their own slogans and tweets. Each message was unleashed as a visual hot air balloon where the learner saw their own message join the increasingly complicated twittersphere surrounding York at that time. Many tweeters loved the recent UNESCO designation of York as a City of Media Arts, many tweeters were baffled, and many trolls hated the whole thing on principle. The differences in opinion was fascinating, so we thought ‘let’s make art out of this.’ So we gave Shipley's 'The Print Project' a ring.
“The Print Project are the Rolls Royce of LetterPress printing,” says Greg, “It was an exciting morning at York's Blueberry Academy when The Print Project first arrived and set up. Letterpress printing is aesthetically glorious, and is a great leveller - anyone can have a go. The learners at Blueberry Academy chose, organised, and pressed their posters. We spent a summer iunterfusing innovation and traditional printing techniques. The learners curated a series of their posters to complement the beautiful Giclée posters designed by Choir of Vision, culled from tweets from members of the public on York's UNESCO status as #CityofMediaArts. Some loved it, some hated it. Either way, the posters were in gallant company with the letterpress posters. When it came for the job of imbuing all tweets and slogans with a Jedi-esque digital power, we worked with light installation artist Nick Walters. According to McGee became for three weeks a refulgent, futuristic spaceship, all the while building its glorious swagger on slogans written by York's most vulnerable citizens.
“Light installation artist Nick Walters was amazing,” says Ails, “He was fascinated by the tweets created by the learners, as well as by the nature of twitter itself. He built his installation around a bird cage, complete with origami birds, so that when the tweets were projected though it, the messages would refract through the birds and glitter ball, thereby radiating around the gallery and through the front window, beneath the black shadow of Clifford's Tower. It was great to receive the award from Mark Addy at the Culture Awards too!”
Video: https://vimeo.com/manage/
Ails and Greg McGee with actor Mark Addy at York Culture Awards
‘Garage Projects’, Goldsmiths and Glasgow School of Art Graduates, 2015
The McGee’s saw in their 10th anniversary with a group show from Goldsmiths and Glasgow School of Art graduates. 'Garage Projects', comprising of Rae Hicks, Paul Crook, Jack Park, Mary Wintour, Ian Parkin and Will Thompson, who brought 'Beginnings, Middles, Ends' to the centre of York. “It was a chance for us to look outwards and chase quality,” says Ails, “Rae Hicks won the John Moores Painting Prize and more recently the Waverton Art Prize, beating 700 submissions shortlisted by the international curator Paint Talk. The exhibition launched with a packed event. Both Goldsmiths and Glasgow Schools of Art are so important in influencing the future of visual art, it was exciting to play a part in that.”
Video: https://vimeo.com/130984932
Rae Hicks' art at According to McGee
Interactive Prints: ‘Transamerica’, Nathan Walsh, 2013
In 2013, trans-Atlantic links between York and New York received some creative consolidation, via an exhibition at 5th Avenue in New York and According to McGee. York’s own Nathan Walsh, an internationally established painter, exhibited his astonishingly photorealist cityscapes at New York’s Bernarducci Meisel gallery. 4 days before that a ‘pre-exhibition warm up gig. Kicked things off at According to McGee. “It was an opportunity to test some very innovative and experimental approaches,” says Ails, “‘Transamerica’ is a beautiful, bejewelled cityscape of San Francisco. What was especially great was that it’s rigorously observed and painstakingly crafted. On another level, Walsh painted it in concert with Newcastle University’s Culture Lab so that with a free app developed especially for it, viewers could download the app and see the path the painting took, from its sketches to its final completed mark.” The opening event had 150 people downloading the app at the same time,” says Greg, “They held their iPod or iPhone in front of the print, seeing the history of one of the most beautiful cityscapes from one of the greatest photo realists in UK reveal itself. It simply changed completely the way you see art. Collectors now had art in their hallway that, by day, was a stylish poster and became, once they had Repentir downloaded, cutting edge, limited edition digital art. How's that for a dinner party conversation piece?"
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Nathan Walsh's 'Transamerica' at According to McGee
Seebohm: Stories and Gaming, Nick Walters and Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2014
According to McGee’s charitable arm New Visuality worked with young people from across York. “‘The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’ provided funding for us to work with young people from York who came from families who had experienced poverty. For a lot of people, the very concepts of Creativity and Culture can lead to feelings of exclusion and frustration. 70% of our participants had never visited York Minster. We sat with the young people and their families and carers and highlighted a strategic aim: how do we ensure accessible, diverse and inclusive cultural entitlement for young, disadvantaged people in the city via innovative creativity, and to seamlessly include participants who could pay fees? It was a tough call, but the funding form JRF galvanised us on every level.”
“The artwork was a mixture of basic gaming, comic book illustrations, digital art, and collage,” says Ails, “We needed to unify it to exhibit it in any meaningful way.
So once again we brought in light installation artist Nick Walters to take over our front window. Fresh from installations at York Minster and at Glastonbury, and he worked with us to get the best out of the participant. He's come up with the main visual, to project phrases and text from Seebohm Rowntree's influential 1901 book, "Poverty: A Study of Town Life". Through a semi-transparent patchwork row of terraced houses and characters and their activities created in the project, the words filtered through colours and images chosen independently by our participants, some of their work, some of them working. It ended up being part of citywide festival ‘Illuminating York’, but stood as an inner lit testament to Joseph Rowntree Foundation for months.”
Video: https://vimeo.com/111587718
New Visuality photography for The Joseph Rowntree Foundation funded project
Poetry! Kenny Goldsmith, Arnold Kemp, Rob Fitterman and Kim Rosenfeld, 2007 - 2010. ‘Dreamcatcher’: 2013 - 2022
“Looking back, it’s amazing how much international poetry we managed to fit into our early days,” says Ails, “Kenny Goldsmith, Rob Fitterman and Kim Rosenfeld were - and still are - some of the hottest textual artists in New York. Kenny was featured at President and Mrs. Obama's celebration of American poetry and was subsequently appointed the first Poet Laureate of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Bostonian Kemp is an artist, poet, and curator and serves as the Dean of Graduate Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was named a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts. They all brought a transatlantic and literary energy to our York gallery.”
“We continue to fly the flag for poetry via my role as Arts Advisor for international poetry-zine ‘Dreamcatcher’ and running exhibitions up until the present day,” says Greg. “Staying sensitive to the currents of modern writing has helped us hugely in continuing to curate cutting edge exhibitions.”
Arnold Kemp at According to McGee: https://vimeo.com/66807378
Kenny Goldsmith at According to McGee: https://vimeo.com/
Greg and Ails McGee with New York poet Kenny Goldsmith
'Painting: Figures Underground and Imagined', Dave Pearson and ex-miner Harry Malkin 2019
‘The Return of the Painter’ 2016 - 2022
“Digital Art and poetry are great, but ultimately our raison d’être is Contemporary Painting,” says Ails, “In the case of Dave Pearson, who died in 2008 of cancer, his selected art is especially poignant. The Guardian has him as 'a great British Painter', BBC Radio 4 as 'the greatest painter we never knew'. Internationally respected art critic Edward Lucie Smith hails him as a 'really major artist'. Credit must go to the Dave Pearson Trust who initially rescued his studio in Haslingden continue with it as their full time job to organise his art, with experts applauding their hard work and declaring that the collection is worth more than £1 million.” Says the Trust's Bob Frith, "Dave Pearson died in 2008, leaving behind a vast and fascinating collection of artwork in his studio – the size and quality of which was taken up by the national press. Over the past 15 years there have been large-scale showings of his work, both in London and the North-West where he made his home. Recently, there was the exhibition at the Turnpike Gallery in Manchester. Recently the English Museum of Rural Life collected several of his drawings.”
“Our collaboration will continue to grow, says Greg, "We've worked with the Trust for years, and in 2018 we threw a new synergy into the mix. Ex-miner and full time artist Harry Malkin creates contemporary painting that can hold its own alongside Dave's, providing counterpoints and consolidations all the while. Harry Malkin’s first hand depictions of mining are the finest in the UK, endowing torchlit moments of toil with a muscular theatricality. Cheeks and eye sockets are ink black, shoulders are slick crescents, and amidst the trembling chiaroscuro the figures quicken and bristle in their brutal work. Their poises and movements are perfectly calibrated with the instinct and knowledge hewn from many decades' worth of witnessing and working more than one mile deep in underground.”
“Painting has never been more needed,” says Ails, “And with the likes of Amrik Varkalis, David Baumforth, Freya Horsley, Chantal Barnes, Julia Poulton at the forefront, the medium is showing no signs of letting up soon.”
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Greg and Ails McGee with Bob Frith of Dave Pearson Trust
This is an abridged article first seen on Charles Hutchinson's platform for all things cultural. To follow Charles Hutchinson's blog - and keep in touch with the Hutch - subscribe: https://charleshutchpress.co.uk/
]]>"Our visual aesthetic would not have been possible without the neon slogans from Gary and Claire," says gallery co-director Greg McGee, “According to McGee is built on a mash up of contemporary practices. The idea that a painting and a performance can happen alongside an installation of neon lit slogans, that hang next a wall full of letterpress prints, all in a small gallery space really fired us up. The only difficulty was limiting the exhibition space to a set timescale. Gary and Claire's crackling output helped us celebrate the huge potpourri artists over a long period of time, all the while flying the flag for independent art.”
Ails McGee and Greg McGee, over seen by neon art from Gary & Claire
The inaugural 2015 event from Claire Hind and Gary Winters: Five Dead Acts Five Dead Cats explored the concept of mortality in a performance of action based tasks. ”A dead king meets a dead gorilla, meets a presumed dead adventurer meets a dead singer meets a dead wonder of the world meets a dead writer meets a dead career, meets a dead psychoanalyst meets a dead cat.”
Ails McGee's introduction to the neon art from Gary & Claire
“What more do you need to know?” laughs Greg, “it played to a packed house. I’ve never seen The Lord Mayor of York so spooked! It was a great performance, especially reimagined for our current show at the time, Interfuse, after a stint at the Defibrillator Gallery in Chicago.” The event was overseen by Claire and Gary’s neon slogans Crying and If Only, two phrases met time and time again by the two artists in their exploration of the subconscious. Dream Prints also festooned the walls, taking as the subject matter the dreams and nightmares of the public who dropped in and wrote down their dreams, which were then chronicled as illustrations by Hind and Winters.
Since then a steady snowball of happenings have held court at According to McGee. Light installation artist Nick Walters returned from a triumphant installation at Glastonbury to colonise the gallery’s front window, overlooking York’s second most famous landmark Clifford’s Tower.
Ails McGee and Kimbal Bumstead, over seen by neon art from Gary & Claire
In May 2016, Brian Lewis, Pontefract’s 79 year old Renaissance Man and no stranger to the northern art scene, set up a mattress in the gallery and drew non-stop for 24 hours seventy nine characters from Shakespeare’s canon, taking a break for 2 hours sleep on a put-up bed. “It was very literary, very punk,” says Greg, “and the drawings were great. Brian is a real showman and has more energy than performance artists half his age.” Says Brian, “Interfuse is an important event for me. I love drawing. It really kicked in for me six days before my 76th birthday when I read Hokusai’s comment, when he said that everything he’d done up to that point was inferior to what he was about to do. I loved that. And so, in honour of Hokusai, I set myself a challenge to draw 1000 drawings a year. It was hard work, but I did it, and I’m proud of it. The neon complements the neon of Gary and Claire very well, I feel. Tonight’s Interfuse fits nicely with that. It’s as much about drawing as it is about a performance, which I love, and has really focused me. This isn’t just about creativity. You have to stay up late, and though I’ll be in bed at midnight, I’ll be up two hours later drawing again, adding to the collection. All of this in an art gallery opposite Clifford’s Tower, with a bed on the floor. I’m loving it.”
Brian Lewis and neon at According to McGee, opposite Clifford's Tower, York
The literary vibe skewered so well by Gary & Claire was augmented in June 2016 by a visit from Teesside author Richard Milward and Hull author Russ Litten. Reading excerpts of short stories flanked by two of Milward’s new paintings, the two authors took to the task with relish. Milward’s work is a constant feature on BBC’s Culture Show (he is a favourite of Lauren Laverne), and his work has been translated into 9 languages. Litten’s novels Scream If You Want To Go Faster, Swear Down, and Kingdom are thrilling psychodramas, consolidating Hull’s position on the cultural map. Says Milward, “We’d been threatening to do something together at According to McGee for a long time. It’s been a treat to finally pull it off, showing the paintings and reading alongside the mighty Russ Litten in an independent gallery with massive ambitions in the north and beyond. A particularly special setting given we were performing in the shadow of Clifford’s Tower, where the original Luddites were imprisoned 200 years ago, my paintings being a modern surrealistic take on their plight” says Litten, “it felt great to read in a room full of art. Richard’s paintings are glorious, and the neon light from Gary & Claire has an immediate warmth and intimacy that lends itself gladly to spoken word performance. I hope to come back in the future and tell some more tales.”
“Independent art has always been in the cultural bloodstream,” now says co-director Ails McGee, “independent art avoids this strange obsession with pigeon holes such as Cubism, Supremacism, Vorticism, what have you. At its best, it’s “anti-elite”, in that it’s not there for an intellectual elite to wield to prove a point that bamboozles most viewers."
Ails McGee and the art of Gary and Claire hold court in York's According to McGee
"Contemporary art doesn’t always have to about the “big idea”, it should be accessible to everyone, and the easier one genre interfuses with another genre, the greater the impact of a group exhibition. With wit, warmth, and crackling neon light, Gary & Claire have helped make that happen and we will always be grateful to them."
'We Made Something of This' is the final According to McGee exhibition at Tower Street, York. All details on social media.
For more on the game changing creativity of Gary & Claire, visit: http://www.garyandclaire.com/
]]>Greg McGee is Art Advisor for international poetry magazine Dream Catcher
After halcyon formative years in Australia and New Zealand, I returned in late 1981 with my family to the more urban pleasures of Middlesbrough, a post industrial town in North East England. The culture shock was not without its trials. In my yearning for hot colours and crackling scents, some half remembered, some imagined, I became, like many young people in the mid-80s, an avid consumer of Americana. The exotic otherness of urban culture, underground music and life affirming pop rock anthems, imported film and addictive TV slowly inculcated a transatlantic yearning for the American Dream.
This is not to say the UK was a cultural no-man's land. The late seventies and early eighties had their own colours and stories. Counter Culture, Early Skinheads, Ska, and Two-Tone provided fertile ground for the imagination, but it was Americana and its long trek across the Atlantic that often blazed brightest. It was amplified, exaggerated, mythical.
As visual art became my litmus test of a culture's fecundity, I saw how the visual language of a place becomes fetishised and slightly distorted. That aching for the American lifestyle continues in contemporary culture, and it is no better made manifest than in the hyperreal art of UK painter Imogen Hawgood. Imogen's art explores the icons of Americana and the idea of ‘the road’ as a transitional and symbolic landscape. After spending time in LA, sketching, photographing, immersing, she is now lasering in on the American Dream, with its mythic allure of the West. Her recent work has included American landscapes and roadside imagery, and experimentation with light leaks and colour effects. The resulting collection is instantly cinematic. Composition and lighting engenders a filmic, iconic style, reminiscent of a modern Hopper. Her experimentation with photography leads to painterly exposure flaring around the edges of her canvases, and random objects found by the roadside inspire a visual acuity akin to some of the great Photorealists of our time. The propulsive night culture of LA, Sunset Strip, Las Vegas, and the dusty unwinding of the American highway, are sumptuously depicted in her 'Cinerama Dome', 'The Broadway Hollywood', 'Las Vegas Double Exposure', and 'Freeway Underpass' with an exactitude that has enamoured her to international collectors.
Imogen Hawgood's art in Dream Catcher magazine
She says, “The freedom of the American open road has been a powerful image for generations on both sides of the Atlantic, representing for some self-discovery, for others a path to redemption. Through the use of my own photography, as well as found footage, the images I create juxtapose an air of nostalgia with contemporary viewpoints. I often use the interior of a car as a frame through which to view a passing landscape and try to capture a sense of movement through my composition and use of colour and lighting.”
Imogen has exhibited at the New Light exhibition at Scarborough Art Gallery and at the Holt Festival in Norfolk. In 2020 she was shortlisted for the ING Discerning Eye, John Hurt and Sworders art prizes, and in 2021 she was ‘highly commended’ in the watercolour category at the Broadway Arts Festival competition. Most recently, Imogen has exhibited artwork at the Vestige Concept Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, According to McGee gallery in York, and Society of Women Artists Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries London.
Greg McGee
After 17 years as a contemporary gallery, According to McGee is set to close its Tower Street doors in September. Husband and wife and business duo Ails and Greg McGee are looking forward to the next stage but in the meantime they are, according to Greg, ‘ready to go out with an incendiary confetti of contemporary collectibles.’
Ails McGee with a collection of Richard Barnes' paintings
“Every chapter comes to an end,” says Ails, “And before we launch Part Two, we thought let’s finish our tenure at Tower Street by going full circle. We started back in 2005 with a Richard Barnes show, and I had just finished teaching his daughter Chantal Barnes as an A-Level student at Huntington School. Chantal is now an internationally sought after artist and has work appearing in Vogue magazine and Richard has retired from teaching at Bootham School and is now a full time painter.”
Richard Barnes' idiosyncratic contemporary depictions of York
“This is a victory lap for us,” says Greg, “We are in many ways going back to our source with Richard’s York cityscapes, but the art scene in York has changed so much, and the paintings of both Barneses are now so collectible, that though we’re tipping the hat to our first exhibition we are much more excited about the here and now. The York that Richard paints feels very contemporary, very now, and the idiosyncratic vigour with which Chantal pushes paint around is a wholly new visual idea.”
The new collection of paintings from Chantal Barnes has been keenly anticipated by UK collectors
Greg looks back fondly, “Richard really helped galvanise our business plan back in 2005, which was at that point a general desire to exhibit exciting art. He helped distill that down into an irreducible manifesto.
Go primarily for paintings, paintings which are instantly recognisable as from the McGee stable. Grab the attention of passers by, paint the gallery front yellow, which, although a Choir of Vision inception, had its roots in the initial vision Richard helped us shape. Since then we’ve exhibited CBE Elaine Thomas, Dave Pearson, ska legend Horace Panter of the Specials. We’ve had exhibitions officially opened by Sir Ian Botham when we launched art from Dubai celebrity artist Jim Wheat, 1960s painter and friend of The Beatles Doug Binder has had solo shows here. It’s been a wild and fulfilling ride here opposite York’s most recognisable landmark but the time has come to leave the building, and we’re doing it in style with ‘Barnes + Barnes’.
“‘Contemporary Painting: Barnes + Barnes’ straddles our past as gallerists but also looks forward. As an exhibition, it transcends this building, and so we’ll be ready to run it again in the future. Where that will be, we can’t yet say, but that unpredictability, with the liberty and excitement that come with it, was the reason we got into running an art gallery in the first place. This exhibition reflects that. As soon as Chapter II emerges over the horizon, we’ll let you know.”
Ails and Greg McGee are preparing the next chapter in the evolution of the According to McGee gallery
‘Contemporary Painting: Barnes + Barnes’ runs from Saturday July 23rd to Sunday 25th September 2022. For more information, see www.accordingtomcgee.com
In preparation for our forthcoming and final show at our Tower Street location, here from the archives is an article from York's cultural lynchpin, Charles Hutchinson, from back in 2008. Richard Barnes' York city centre depictions kicked us off back in 2005 and we 're finishing here in 2022 with , 'Contemporary Paintings: Barnes and Barnes', a duo show featuring Richard and his daughter Chantal.
For pre-exhibition sales of Ricahrd Barnes' 2022 collection, visit:
https://accordingtomcgee.com/collections/richard-barnes
For Chantal Barnes' collection, check:
https://accordingtomcgee.com/collections/chantal-barnes
York, August 2008
THE heat and colour of Africa, the eternal wonder of the Minster building and the preferences of art college students for the drab have provoked a dramatic pictorial response in York painter and art teacher Richard Barnes.
Greg McGee, the ever loquacious co-owner of According to McGee, calls them “hotly beslobbered”, a phrase partly inspired by Shakespeare and partly by the physicality of Barnes’s oils, in the manner of a Jackson Pollock.
Barnes premiered one of his Minster oils in the Vive La Difference exhibition at Holy Trinity Church, in Goodramgate, in June. Now he has assembled plenty more – he had not counted precisely how many when York Twenty4Seven encountered him with the large-scale works all around him at According to McGee earlier this week – for sale at £300 to £3,000 from today.
After a year’s sabbatical from his teaching post three days a week at Bootham School, he has returned to both school and painting suffused with his experiences in a village of the Bamiliké people in Cameroon. Experiences that have led him into an outburst of spontaneous, improvised richly colourful paintings.
Ails McGee, curating a recent Richard Barnes exhibition, in the window of According to McGee
“Seeing how art college students would be drawn to painting the drains of York, that provoked me into thinking, ‘Right, I’ll paint the most epic views of York’.
“This is the first time I’ve taken on York as a complete painting project, a complete show, like I’ve done when I’ve exhibited in cities like Barcelona.
“What I was doing was taking iconic places in foreign cities and then deconstructing them and using abstract painting to explore the feeling and emotion of being there, so now I’ve done that with York.
Painter Richard Barnes in his studio
“I think people are almost tired of abstract paintings as it’s become an attempt to make things universal, like muzak, but this is my town where I live, where I walk around, and hopefully I can make my paintings real paintings of York.”
Hence his series of Minster paintings, most of them ablaze with colours against a nocturnal background, but one in burnt orange and another in a yellow to make a Tour de France race leader feel plainly attired.
Although the images are initially reminiscent of those rainy night-time photographs that blur the city neon lights in an excitable, electrical haze, Richard says “the paintings are the opposite of what photos can do”. They’re very physical, very subjective, very much about what happens when you paint, so there are great gobs and spills of paint.
“The idea was to rev all the colours up to their highest ratio, and that’s come from Africa, where all the colours are revved up to the maximum when the women dress up. You think the colours won’t work together, but they do.”
A recent 3m x 2m contemporary depiction of York Minster by Richard Barnes, sold to a private collector
Greg McGee has his own, typically idiosyncratic take on Barnes’s latest work. “It’s only when Dorothy leaves home in Kansas that the screen erupts into Technicolor, and it’s only when an artist leaves his reverence for York at home that he can fully capture the city’s restlessness and colourful energy. Barnes’s wild compositions are a real shot in the arm for York art,” he says. “Barnes is like a virtuoso music producer handling a veteran rock god. It’s a bit like when Rick Rubin produced Johnny Cash, or Pharrell Williams produces Madonna. There’s an element of rejuvenation, and it connects to new audiences. Barnes’s work keeps things moving along and is as valid as anything that’s gone on before.”
McGee believes York is a fascinating place to be at the moment, and sees Barnes’s paintings as a fitting comment on the city in the 21st century. “York is pulling in all kinds of interesting directions, whether its café culture, its tourists, or its art scene, but at its heart is this classically beautiful city, and this is similar to Barnes’s art,” he says.
“He chases all kinds of themes and experiments with all kinds of colours, building on his African influences – but at the core is a highly skilled craftsman who’s been honing his talents for the past 30 years. Crucially, it’s this balance that ensures he connects.
“The York that Barnes paints looks as if it’s going to party like it’s 1999 rather than 1799. There’s room for both attitudes, Georgian gentility and Technicolor excitement. Here at According to McGee, however, we’ll always go with the Technicolor.”
York artist Richard Barnes, caught up in a riot of colour in his paintings for an earlier show at According To McGee
DAVID BAUMFORTH
David Baumforth was born in York in 1942 and paints the places he loves: the North Sea, its coastline and hinterland. Says Financial Times Art Critic William Packer, “Baumforth is a painter of sea and landscape who stands foursquare and unapologetic in the Romantic Turnerian tradition, but, as his powerfully evocative works make clear, it is to the later Turner of the near-abstract, apparently unfinished canvases and the rapid free intuitive watercolour studies, all mist and light and spray, with strange forms emerging from the shadows, that he is always looking.”
"In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some of the greatest painters in the UK moved to Staithes for the exact same reason painters flocked to Normandy: the light found there is unique. Unlike Normandy, Staithes has on its doorstep the glowering beauty of the North Yorkshire Moors. It is this fusion of light and heft that has obsessed my painting for 60 years since I started out in York. I have enjoyed international success and like to think I have helped put North Yorkshire and its accompanying natural beauty on the cultural map.
David Baumforth at York's According to McGee
Recently I have begun to experiment with painted Yorkshire skyscapes focusing on the moments after sunset rather than the cerulean blue and wan gold of daylight. There are exhilarating currents of natural light to be found in North Yorkshire as the sun sinks and I have accepted this objective as my new and perhaps final artistic obsession. It is for this reason that I am working on 'Dark Skies and Sea' - all my life I have aimed to reinvent what paint can do and I feel that I can sufficiently innovate skyscapes to include the issues inspired by vision, bringing a Turnerian but contemporary energy to a bespoke collection of paintings, proving this medium is constantly evolving and has never been in better health."
David Baumforth, 2022
To view our David Baumforth collection, visit: https://accordingtomcgee.com/collections/david-baumforth
]]>This is an opportunity for lovers of beauty to experience the art of a painter and ceramicist at the top of his game. David’s collection is amply complemented by Janie Stevens’ ‘Imperfect’ series, a paean to simplicity and how nature never does ugly. There are also studies on natural textures left by the weather from our gallerist Ails McGee and Devonshire artist Jennifer Bennett.
Nature not only heals: it galvanises and provokes. The days of becalmed seascapes are in the past.
David Austin Duckworth outside York art gallery According to McGee
For David Austin Duckworth’s art, see: https://accordingtomcgee.com/collections/david-austin-duckworth
For Janie Stevens’ sculptures, see: https://accordingtomcgee.com/collections/janie-stevens
For Ails McGee’s art, see: https://accordingtomcgee.com/collections/ails-mcgee
For Jennifer Bennett’s art, see: https://accordingtomcgee.com/collections/jennifer-bennett
]]>Tower Street gallery According to McGee launches its ‘Return of the Painter 2022’ series with a duo exhibition from Kimbal Bumstead and Simon Crawford.
With their antennae picking up on healthy competition from other galleries based in the north (“The creative industries have never been healthier,” confides Greg), gallery duo Greg and Ails McGee have opted for ‘scale and colour’. “But it’s not just the ‘wow!’ factor says Ails, “There are deeper meanings behind the collections of Kimbal and Simon. This, and the fact that their latest paintings dovetail so well with each other, means that the time is right to hand over the reins to both of these fascinating artists.”
Kimbal Bumstead and Simon Crawford are both painters who celebrate colour and, though previous exhibitees with the McGees, have never until now synchronised their output.
Kimbal, new to York but with years of experience of painting under his belt, brings to the McGees a new energy inculcated by recent success stories exhibiting in Sheffield, Tokyo, Amsterdam and at the Mall Galleries in London, as well as teaching abstract art classes with York Learning. Says Kimbal, “It’s really thrilling to be an artist. My job is to bring things into existence that weren’t there before, and I use colour and mark-making to get there. But there are other aspects too. These paintings aren’t just experiments in colour, nor are they just expressions of feelings, they are also explorations of journeys into other worlds.”
Kimbal Bumstead (far right) with the According to McGee team
The Kimbal Bumstead collection, ‘Segments of Journeys’, hangs on the wall of the front gallery opposite Clifford’s Tower, and they do indeed pulse and shimmer, suggesting memories and half formed ideas. “The subject matter isn’t fixed, it’s yet to be defined,” continues Kimbal, “If the idea of journeying is the building block of the painting, the overarching theme is, I think, that there’s no destination. I love the process of trying to let go and getting lost in the painting. That’s a positive to me, and reflects on how I live my life. Stuff happens, you navigate it, and hopefully you enjoy the process. I like trying to see a street differently each time I walk down it, and the same goes for my paintings – each time I look at them I find something new, something I hadn’t noticed before”
Kimbal Bumstead at According to McGee
Kimbal points to the intersecting colours and mark making on the surfaces of his paintings, with some strokes sliding into areas that had been painted much earlier. “It’s like landscapes,” he continues, “I like how a landscape in real life has different layers. Physical layers, ideas that people project, memories, different stories, traces of the old next to the new. It’s something I am really keen on capturing.”
Can you explain a little more?
"It's not dissimilar to experiencing York as a city. On one hand you see what's on the surface, the old buildings next to new ones, but then there's another world, the one you have to imagine, the one where different stories have taken place and settled like sediment. That’s really the case with this collection, there is not just one way of seeing it.”
“It’s heavy stuff,” Greg says, “But at its heart it's an antidote to the current obsession with targets and data. This is less harnessing data and more harnessing dreams, which is a priority in most artists' manifestos.”
On the opposite wall hangs the latest collection, ‘Cool Shade and Hot Light,’ from Knaresborough artist Simon Crawford. In terms of scope and vividity, the collections complement each other, with Simon’s approach perhaps more relatively literal in his depictions of his experiences. “I have recently returned from India. To call it a ‘life changing’ experience is to underestimate it,” says Simon, “It brought me new textures and colours, and I have been trying to skewer them in my palette and on the surface of my canvases since. I think this collection is a true representation of what I saw and how I saw it.”
Simon Crawford with Greg McGee at According to McGee
With a CV that includes exhibitions in Dean Clough galleries, international stints in Moscow galleries, and more recently in Messums North, it is to According to McGee he has brought his impressionistic portraits of India. “What’s especially great is that when Simon now turns his attention to northern subject matters, he filters his depictions through the conduit of tropical heat, so that you get Rievaulx Abbey endowed with the glittering humidity of an Indian jungle,” says Greg. “It’s witty and sensual, and it’s exactly what we’re looking for in our search for more excellent painters to represent. Simon’s use of colour is instantly recognisable, and it’s humbling to see he is showing no signs of backing down.”
“The Punjabi palette seems to work really well with our collectors, especially here in the North,” says Ails, “Whether it's from Simon or Kimbal, or other from McGee favourites like Amrik Varkalis, a fearless celebration of hot colour connects with clients and leads to increasingly good sales. Whether that’s down to the general doom and gloom of our times, or the drizzly weather, we haven’t worked out yet! But we’ve worked hard on curating this exhibition, helped in no small way by Emma Storkey, Emmanuelle Butler, and George Clarke who as Year 10 students from All Saints School have spent the last 10 days on their Work experience with us. We’re all looking forward to bringing to this duo exhibition as an early summer gift to collectors who like to bask in the heat of their collections.”
Simon Crawford with his 2022 collection at According to McGee
For Kimbal Bumstead’s art: https://accordingtomcgee.com/
For Simon Crawford’s art: https://accordingtomcgee.com/
This article originally appeared on Charles Hutchinson's online supernova for all things cultural: https://charleshutchpress.co.uk/
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Tower Street’s According to McGee continues its campaign to alleviate anxiety caused by uncertain times. After her successful launch of her own collection ‘Affirmations' last week, gallerist Ails McGee has curated a duo exhibition, ‘Colour & Ceramics’ in the front gallery opposite Clifford’s Tower.
“Colour is underrated in Britain,” she says, “And after 19 months of relentless bad news online and in the papers, it’s sometimes an obligation for creatives to stop reflecting the anger of the times and instead try and find a little optimism. That’s why there’s such an explosion of colour here at the moment.”
Simon Crawford's paintings at According to McGee
‘Colour & Ceramics’ sees the launch of new collections from painter Simon Crawford and painter and ceramicist David Austin Duckworth. Simon has recently returned from a trip to India, and it is this that provided a portal into the theme of the exhibition.
Says co-director Greg McGee, “Simon’s art has been exhibited internationally, with shows in Moscow and, a little closer to home, at Dean Clough galleries, helping give this collection an extra heft and pull for collectors across the UK. But it’s also the fact that Simon travels, and soaks up his experiences with such obvious wonder and gratitude, that imbues his paintings with such ripples of light and dark. To hear him talk of watching the Indian jungle come to life from his train window in the red light of the evening is thrilling and then to hear him talk of how COVID has decimated the shanty towns of Amritsar and Mumbai is a reminder that recent history has been a nightmare for millions of people. Art is never going to fix these problems, but it can be a hammer we can use to help shape our response. In this case, it’s a very colourful hammer.” Simon has brought back to his UK studio a new appreciation of colour and energy, even filtering his depictions of North Yorkshire’s Whinny Bank at Rievaulx through the conduit of a Punjabi palette. He is looking forward to exhibiting at According to McGee, “The concept is a brilliant one from the gallery – brightening these rather grim days through colour. India is visually explosive and an eyes out on stalks experience. A love affair was ignited by the intensity of the Indian palette. This show will set the visual taste buds tingling as the English autumn approaches. My work takes you on a journey through the Rajasthan landscape of pink saris against pale green and yellow mustard fields – India made me reimagine my vision of the English landscape.” Complementing the vivid compositions of Simon Crawford, fellow Knaresborough artist David Austin Duckworth continues his collection, ‘Cornwall Inspired’, a celebration of the elements, especially those found at Cornwall. “Not all of us managed to get to Cornwall this summer,” says Ails, “So experiencing David’s artwork is the next best thing. David’s paintings are alive with light and turquoise seas, and his Raku fired ceramics ache with how precious is nature. Both Simon and David work well together, and it is a duality we’d like to continue to exhibit.”
Simon Crawford's paintings at According to McGee
“We’re excited”, agrees Greg, “There are a whole load of reasons for people to come and visit York city centre. We like to think that Contemporary Art is increasingly up there at the top of the list.”
]]>YORK gallery According To McGee introduces a new painter and illustrator to their growing stable of artists this weekend for the Hyperrealism in America and Japan show.
Imogen Hawgood, from County Durham, brings her collection of realist paintings to Tower Street for a duo show with Pop artist and Ska legend Horace Panter, The Specials’ bassist.
“The inaugural aspect is important to the gallery as we continue to celebrate our 17th anniversary,” says co-director Greg McGee. “We’ve been blessed to run an art gallery in such a wonderful city through so many triumphant and difficult times.
“The worst thing to do is fossilise and rely on our biggest sellers. The beauty of York is that, as a city with so much heritage, there’s a huge market for all things contemporary, and we’ve always tried to engage with that.”
Horace Panter and his hyper-art is no stranger to the McGees. “I’ve been working with According To McGee for a number of years now and am delighted to be bringing Americana and Japanese street scenes to this exhibition with Imogen,” he says.
Panter’s slices of punk-infused realism are instantly recognisable on the gallery’s white walls. “From Edward Hopper-inspired depictions of Midwest motels to the inner-lit thrum of Japanese kiosks and sun-warmed Coca-Cola crates, his collection complements perfectly Imogen’s art, which explores the icons of Americana and the idea of ‘the road’ as a transitional and symbolic landscape,” says Greg.
Horace Panter's '29 Beer Crates, Tokyo' at According to McGee, York
Hawgood’s focus has turned to American landscapes and roadside imagery, together with experimentation with light leaks and colour effects. “Imogen spent some time in Los Angeles and is now lasering in on the American Dream, with its mythic allure of the West,” says gallery co-director Ails McGee.
Imogen Hawgood at According to McGee, York
“Viewers will see that her work is instantly cinematic. There’s the composition and lighting that feels really filmic and looks iconic and stylish, like a modern Hopper. Depictions of Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema help hammer home this vibe.”
Imogen Hawgood's 'Las Vegas, Double Exposure' at According to McGee
Imogen says: “The freedom of the American open road has been a powerful image for generations on both sides of the Atlantic, representing for some self-discovery, for others a path to redemption."
Imogen Hawgood's 'Las Vegas, Pioneer Club' at According to McGee
Click here for the rest of the article: https://
If you were to play word association in 1997 and throw in ‘Kiev’ the response would invariably be ‘Chicken’. As a 21 year old departing for a coach journey to live in Ukraine for 10 months I held similarly dim views of my destination city. I knew that Kyiv (the now preferred spelling) had been a USSR communist city for decades, a fact which held its own dark glitter, but my young man’s antennae had also picked up the sense of a city being born right here, right now. Leaving Spice Girls Britain for a city of possibilities was an easy choice to make.
My first impression was that no one in Kyiv had ever heard of Chicken Kiev. The second was the architecture. USSR planners were not known for their flourish, but the Soviet insistence on sameness was surprisingly offset by huge examples of rococo and detailed facades. Even in the midst of its post World War II makeover, Kyiv had one eye on maintaining some kind of balance, it seemed. Though the Lenin statues stared out from street corners, they felt more like a necessary recognition of recent heritage than potent political symbols. Sumptuously baroque churches, choc full of worshippers now the anti-religious persecutions of the state had abated, stood next to colossal war memorials that made 1998's Angel of the North back home in Tyneside look like an A-Level art installation. Underground metro stations, some of the deepest in the world serving one and a half million daily passengers, displayed in mosaic the timeline of kings and saints from medieval glories. Zoloti Vorota Station hulked hugely, a replica of the giant fortifications which failed to keep out the invading forces of Batu Khan’s Mongols in 1240. Black Mercedes saloons disgorged wannabe mafia men on street corners to buy caffè Americanos.
It was this flinching willingness to fuse its ancient, recent and nascent identities that set Kyiv apart at the end of the century. Cities in the UK were just starting to embrace homogenous anonymity, with the same bookstores, coffee shops, chain pubs, and anti-social stag parties that dilute them to this day. Kyiv was simply up for seeing where the chips fell. The book shop that made me feel so welcome in January was a Drum and Bass nightclub by February; the Mexican Restaurant was a Cocktail Bar by March. Literature was a source of pride, with Kyiv’s Bulgakov’s ‘Master and Margarita’ providing inspiration for The Rolling Stone’s ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ For 30p each week I watched the staple diet of Operas and Ballets at ‘National Opera of Ukraine’ with local artist Dima and his crew. We had all become friends and we relaxed with Ukrainian beer (Obolon! Soft, rich, grainy) in new bars and clubs afterwards.
There was no denying the groundswell of independence that had gathered momentum since the fall of the Iron Curtain 5 years earlier. There was some nostalgia from some quarters for the rigorous certainties of the Soviet era, but increasingly the vibe over coffee, tea, vodka or McDonalds, was the excitement that came with closer assimilation with Europe, whether that meant becoming part of the EU or NATO. The end of the most complicated century in this country’s see-saw history must surely bring with it the dawn of a new age of calm prosperity, we thought. The Millennium was going to be a big deal for young Kyivites: they had been patient and philosophical, and they were at last due the turn of the wheel that had eluded them so long.
The rest of the article is found here:
https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/19892789.york-gallery-owner-greg-mcgee-recalls-life-kiev-1997/
]]>Solitude not only heals, it galvanises and kindles.
And in a time when hurrying into a day filled with coffee and deadlines is the norm, a quiet cup of tea on the couch can be a countercultural act.
So Solitude can be creativity’s ground zero, where the first seeds are sown, and a harvest reaped at leisure. Wordsworth was onto something when he rhapsodised “I wandered lonely as a cloud” - in a few lines of extreme, lyrical simplicity he nails that moment when we witness in the wilderness of wandering something worth writing about. He sees ‘the host of golden daffodils’, he recentres, and, following his own maxim of ‘emotion recollected in tranquility’, later mints some of the most bullet proof poetry of the last 250 years.
Solitude too is the subject matter of Peter Davis’s collection of paintings, ‘Zeitgeist’, but these young people are not in touch with their poetic muse, rather they are totally distracted by digital devices. Depending on your age or outlook, these could work as cautionary images, moments of envy (Snapchat! Fortnite!), moments of simple communication, or a bit of meta-imagery. It is the latter that equips ‘Zeitgeist’ with a crucial poetic thrust.
Via Davis’ forensic observation and painterly mark making, a doubleness emerges. It is Painting and its analogue physicality that captures enthralldom to all things digital. It is Davis’ hand held skills, hewn from countless hours in the studio, that fixes the flickering ephemerality of pressing, swiping, saving, deleting. Unlike Wordsworth, Davis wields all of his prowess to immortalise not the world of universal aesthetics (flowers, trees, skies) but this new world of digital experience, where thrills, boredom, and communication intersect. This is Virtual Reality depicted in realistic painting.
It’s in the act of painting that something is reclaimed in these subjects. Our first impression of their drone-like focus on devices is expertly offset by Davis’ consummate brush strokes. The very heft of his palette and the marks he makes engenders in his subjects a quickening, bringing them to pulsing life, thus softening our initial reaction. This is the genius of Davis’ output. Perhaps there is after all poetry to be found in the simple joy of reaching for what is to many a direct line to expressing that 'something worth writing about', and for a generation from whom so much has been stolen, time spent on the Cloud is as healing as time wandering lonely as one.
What: David Baumforth returns with a new collection, 'The Moors and the North East Coast'.
Who: David Baumforth is an internationally celebrated painter, whose exhibitions (Royal College of Art) have been feted by the BBC and Financial Times.
What: a new exhibition, ‘Home and the Horizon’.
Who: painters Freya Horsley, Ails McGee, Jennifer Bennett, Julia Poulton
When: November 2021
Where: here! According to McGee, opposite Clifford's Tower, York.
More: ‘Home and the Horizon’ sees Devon based painter and printmaker Jennifer Bennett fusing landscapes and the memories evoked from walking in them.
Nationally celebrated artist Freya Horsley return with her final collection for 2021 of neon-primed seascapes.
Gallerist Ails McGee continues ‘Affirmations’, a series of paintings celebrating the simple pleasures of tea at home.
Julia Poulton reveals her new collection of luminous oil paintings.
‘Home and the Horizon’ is an exhibition to remind us that Nature not only heals, it galvanises and kindles.
And in a time when hurrying into a day filled with coffee and deadlines is the norm, a quiet cup of tea on the couch can be a countercultural act.
Art makes life more interesting than Art. The art scene in York has never been better. All artwork is affordable and available for purchase. View them here: https://accordingtomcgee.com/collections/featured-artists
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This article first appeared on Charles Hutchinson's site: https://charleshutchpress.co.uk/why-angus-vasili-finds-cause-for-optimism-in-his-brutalist-architecture-screenprint-show-at-according-to-mcgee/
Tower Street gallery According to McGee sets its sights on architecture in its current exhibition, 'Optimism and Brutalism'. Says gallery director Greg McGee, "Since the first Lockdown we found that nature does more than heal. It can provoke and galvanise, and a lot of that energy can be found in the new seascapes or moorscapes that collectors have been buying or commissioning. Recently we have had more collectors asking about cityscapes and depictions of architecture, something about the definition of hard angles and the certainty of edges is chiming with tastes. We thought it was about time we gave Angus Vasili a ring. And that was how this current exhibition, ‘Optimism and Brutalism’ came about."
The McGees are of the mind that the reputation of Brutalism is in need of rehabilitation. "It goes beyond subjective opinions," says gallery co-director Ails McGee, "These buildings were once loved for their linear honesty. Now they are often derided. Vasili pulls them out from Architectural Cancel Culture and reevaluates them."
With titles like 'Central Hall', 'Hayward Gallery', JB Morrell Library', Vasili's latest collection provides an idiosyncratic overview of Brutalism's greatest hits. They are more than mere portraits of their stark subject matter, says Greg. "His silkscreens are at heart playful experiments. There are blushes of hot colour, dancing, broken lines, white slices of negative space deliberately alone. These come from a love of the process and the accidents it throws up as much as the focused observation of a building style that most people think leaves no room for flexibility."
Says Angus, "My fascination with concrete, industrial landscapes and what I recently came to know as ‘brutalism’ has triggered this series of screen prints," he says. "I'm combining photography, texture and printmaking to create a raw aesthetic that resonates with the fundamental material of brutalism.
"I use a combination of bold colour and texture to help convey the optimism that these architects strived to achieve with this period of architecture.'’
The exhibition continues in McGee's front gallery. "It's a sharp reminder that there's room for more than ancient history in York," says Greg, "There have been calls to demolish York's Stonebow and replace it with faux Georgian gentility, which would be even more irksome, because of its sleight of hand. We're opposite Clifford's Tower, arguably York's most famous landmark. We can see for ourselves how Vasili's art contributes to the discussion of York's architectural continuum, and we're finding that our clients and collectors are in agreement."
'Angus Vasili: Optimism and Brutalism' continues until November 14th at According to McGee, opposite Clifford's Tower. For more information on the artist, visit: https://
Article originally published by Charles Hutchinson, https://charleshutchpress.co.uk/tea-time-how-a-reviving-cuppa-has-inspired-ails-mcgees-affirmations-paintings/
EVERYTHING starts with tea for York artist and According To McGee co-director Ails McGee.
Key to Ails’ latest artistic development is the scale and quality of this city’s tea shops. “After a while, you need to reach for something that isn’t wine,” she says. “And we’re very well looked after by tea havens such as Tullivers, Hebden Tea and Tea Palace.
“But it’s not just the tea. There are these little affirmations that are attached with string to the tea bags and they’re wonderful. Such a simple little morning ritual has become like a prayer for me, especially at this time of chaos, and that serenity has most definitely fed into my new collection of paintings.”
Why has everything stopped for tea in this preamble? Because gallerist Ails has picked up the paint brushes once more to bring her Affirmations to the ongoing Return Of The Painter series at the McGees’ gallery in Tower Street, York.
Before establishing According To McGee with husband and business partner Greg in 2004, Ails was a successful painter, exhibiting in her native Kelso in the Scottish Borders and around Yorkshire.
Bringing up three children, together with gallery and charity commitments, meant the brushes were lain to rest until the “parsimonious proposals from politicians on essential exercise” for Lockdown 1 prompted her to go back to the drawing board.
The Return of the Mc went so well that her “comeback” show of North Eastern seascapes sold out in a day in July last year as the ebullient Tower Street art space welcomed browsers for the first time since the Covid-enforced shutdown on March 23.
Now, in the wake of Return Of The Painter: The Sea, The Sky, The City, Ails has turned her attention to all things “hygge” [the Danish and Norwegian word for a mood of cosiness and comfortable conviviality with feelings of wellness and contentment].
Cue her latest collection, all semi-abstract compositions of teacups and vases, bearing such titles as Come Home: All Is Well And I Am Safe, My Day Begins And Ends With Gratitude, I Am Connected To My Power Centre, Find The People Who Make You Feel Like Sunshine, I Allow Myself To Play And Be Silly and As I Return To The Shore I Feel Braver Than I Did Before.
That’s some departure from your depictions of the North Sea, Ails? “The subject matter is different but the theme is the same. These paintings are celebrations of optimism and positivity at dark times,” she says of her works inspired by affirmations, colours, pebbles, textures and, yes, those reviving cups of tea.
“It’s just that, rather than the light on the horizon, they find hope in the straightforward act of making a pot of tea or living with simplicity and without clutter.”
Managing the gallery and producing new collections of painting has “never been easier” for Ails. “The daily pause that comes with enjoying Yogi tea and following the guidance provided on the actual tea boxes has led to a more relaxed mindfulness. That is most certainly true,” says Ails.
“But I’m a businesswoman too, so it’s very gratifying to see such successful sales. Private collectors snapped up the first wave of paintings. The second wave has gone to The Backyard, in a commission, which is hugely exciting to be part of something so visually stunning.”
What and where is The Backyard, Ails? “The Backyard, or Bakgardurrin in Icelandic, is a holiday let in Heworth, managed by Gudbjorg Halldorsdottir as an Icelandic retreat for visitors from Iceland and elsewhere,” she says.
“The commission caught my imagination and allowed me to align my new passions: Affirmations, Art, Tea, all displayed in a location curated with genuine northern hygge and with such taste.
“The art looks perfectly placed and is available to buy for visiting guests. It’s an honour to be able to provide such souvenirs for visitors to York.”
Gudbjorg says: “The idea of running a luxury holiday let in York has been brewing in my mind for a while. As an Icelander, I’ve been living in York for three years. I feel passionate about spreading the word and enabling as many as possible to experience this wonderful city.
“When the opportunity to buy a new-built house in our backyard emerged, I wanted to explore the possibility of collaborating with local people and businesses in York.”
As a lover of art, she was keen to add “something special” to the house and to work with York artists to display their work in The Backyard.
“My partner and I have been lucky to get to know the lovely Greg and Ails McGee. I noticed that Ails had a beautiful collection of small pieces. Her work was exactly what I was looking for,” she says.
“I hope that my guests at The Backyard will enjoy the artwork and take the opportunity to purchase a piece as a perfect souvenir of their stay.”
Ails is enjoying painting a new collection to meet demand from new clients. “Affirmations, as a collection, has definitely struck a chord and I feel I’m onto something positive at a time when things have been so tough.
“If an artist can feel vindicated by the support of visionaries such as Gudbjorg and new collectors, then I am indeed blessed.”
Yes, it’s time for Affirmations, a browse and maybe a brew at According To McGee, open Monday to Friday, 11am to 3pm, Saturdays, 11am to 4pm, or by appointment on 07973 653702.
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