Press Release - "A Series of Meditations on the Complexities of Life" by Wardell McNeal
Wardell McNeal
”In Search of Lightness in Being”
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 inches
2021
pt. 2:
A Series of Meditations on the Complexities of Life
Wardell McNeal
Opening - February 13, 2021
Showing Through - Friday, March 2, 2021
Schedule a private viewing
info@part2gallery.com
pt. 2 Gallery is pleased to present A Series of Meditations on the Complexities of Life, a solo exhibition of new work by Wardell McNeal. In McNeal’s first exhibition with the gallery, the painter expands his distinctive form of stylized figurative painting. The paintings exhibited represent a journey in the artist’s spiritual growth through knowledge and discovery and in formal properties of texture, color and perspective.
The predominantly blue faces that exist within McNeal’s canvases have a distinct human feel, despite their relative uncertainty, both in the paradoxical world they inhabit and their startling lack of verisimilitude. Some faces lack eyes, while others hide behind masks. At times, it is unclear when the face ends and the space begins. McNeal’s background as an industrial designer informs the complex worlds his figures belong in - worlds full of shifted perspective, staircases to nowhere, and visual representations of various chakra, emotional states, and even philosophical musings.
The colorful lexicon that makes up McNeal’s diverse faces demonstrates an openness between race and identity. Despite certain visual cues that may lead the viewer to see these figures as belonging to a certain race, the stylized skin tone removes them from the stereotypical boundaries set apart by the societal expectations of said skin tone. Removed from reality, the body disassociates from reality in McNeal’s paintings, creating space for philosophical musing, space to emote, and time to seek answers to the unknown.
Wardell McNeal
”In Search of Lightness in Being”
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 inches
2021
The vivid palette extends beyond the figures, cementing the unknown reality portrayed in McNeal’s paintings. In the painting In Search of Lightness in Being a deep blue figure gazes towards a circular light source emanating from the center. This energy radiates towards a small pyramid, illuminating the blue and purple room that surrounds the subject. The moment presented, as in many of McNeal’s works, seems to display a metaphysical moment or emotional state. The warm tones vibrate in a near-dissonant frequency with the rest of the scene, demonstrating the unfamiliar feeling of fulfillment and discovery .
The different ways we grapple with grief is apparent in a number of paintings. In the piece We Have Always Been and We Always Will Be, a burgundy face with eyes closed looks up from the bottom of the painting, apparently ensconced in an orderly shrine. Two blue faces float above it, one with a hat cast low over its eyes, the other peering into the distance. Each indicates a form of handling grief, while the former retreats into its own world, the other gazes out, as if to seek help or carry in on the departed’s memory.
The surreal world in which McNeal’s paintings transport the viewer to detect a spiritual or metaphysical plane not visible to the human eye. Painting with the recognition that an energy flows between the world and its people, his world is a visual manifestation of the thoughts, feelings, tribulations and successes we encounter on a daily basis. The physical body is but a container in which identity, ancestry, motivation and desire run through, at times ephemerally, others with heightened permanence.