Jeff McMillan's idiosyncratic approach of dipping stretched antique linen canvases face down into thinned pools of oil paint create paintings with beautiful veils of colour that become virtual monochromes when complete. The four edges of the painting are also dipped to create a visual framing device. McMillan later attaches the works to the outside of his studio on a south-facing wall where they are exposed to sun, rain and wind usually for 1 to 2 years, until the artist intuits that they are ‘ripe’ or ready. The works are then brought back inside to be finished in an assortment of different manifestations. He speaks of each painting finding its own form, either splayed, or folded or dipped vertically into more oil paint. At times the final result becomes sculptural or architectural by employing symmetry and simplicity to make low-relief works casually pinned to the wall. Alternatively, some are framed between sheets of glass, others are flag-like, sewn together and pinned flat to the wall. Their size and shape varies greatly but ranges in scale from 40 x 30 cm to 200 x 160 cm. These works are highly durational and distinct, their bold but desaturated colours bear the traces of their interaction with nature: water stains, slug trails, bird markings, soil, pollution, all a testament to their long gestation. They are part recording device, part history painting, an emblematic elegy to modernist painting. Image: Jeff McMillan, Untitled (H-109), 2019, Oil on linen, 40 x 29 x 3 cm | Kristof De Clercq gallery | JMM82 #jeffmcmillan #herculespaintings #modernistpainting #monochromes #americanartist @jeffmcmillanstudio (bij Kristof De Clercq gallery) https://www.instagram.com/p/CCk0wYDlO1L/?igshid=1vniain7y1cns
