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Stone WallsKeegan McHargue

Keegan McHargue’s vivid paintings depict storied tableaus that convey a sense of accumulated time. In the context of SMMoCA’s overgrown ruins, they dialogue with a site that is itself anachronistic by virtue of its complicated past over 175 years ago, abandoned and since peacefully occupied by plants and insects. McHargue’s paintings are informed by his experiences and memory’s longevity. They convey a distinct temporality with their own enduring narratives.

McHargue reminds us that we tend to, “revere painting so much that it's hard to admit that they, too, are temporary and organic.” The effect of paintings viewed in the white cube space of a gallery may convince us of their permanence. However, the artist’s studio and the artist's mind, where art originates, is an entirely different context. In the studio the work is organic, and the origins of Keegan’s paintings are simultaneously their making and the imagination that inspired it. The paintings invite some of the original creative feelings to be experienced again by the viewer. 

In discussing his work, McHargue might tell you about the harmony he experiences in the development of every artwork and that this is a part of his daily life. The vivacity of his painting’s colors and forms seem almost tranquil in SMMoCA’s settings, far from white walls, and more akin to the studio space or the artist’s mind as the work takes shape. The journey of these paintings and their creative process appear integrated on a path from the imagination into the studio and out into the jungle where they seem at home again. 

An immediacy translates in the activities portrayed in the composition of Good Luck Frog. Like most of McHargue’s paintings the work is rendered in a single layer of paint, without any reworking or overpainting. Good Luck Frog’s figuration is inundated with gesture and color intensity that he says reminds him of west coast sunsets and sunrises (Dreams come from the West.) The inspired improvisations in McHargue’s work builds on this cyclical daily melodrama as well as the tradition of the nocturne in painting.

Our Gang is the only intentional still life McHargue confesses to have made. Even while painting “still subjects," his shifting points of view are fluid as he considers his subject’s relation to time and space as well as memory. The Stuffies in Our Gang are a little more than just his daughter’s favorite animals lined up on the couch; their presence honors her imagination and channels it. This approach to image making could be compared to Morandi’s meditative ability to draw light and kinetic energy out of ceramic bowls and pitchers on a kitchen table.

Archway, hanging near the tunnel passageway of SMMoCA, features figures peering over a bridge at a pair of young lovers just below. The work has the same psychological intensity as a security photo of kids caught drinking in a public park at night. You can’t help but feel that you are the subject in that memory. McHargue’s paintings sometimes invite nostalgia and usually envisage some aspect of time’s transitions in a single moment that commands your attention. His undertaking of time and place in both Archway and Our Gang evoke impermanent moments.

Tinker depicts a small man on tip-toes in a focused moment as he prunes a bonsai tree. He is a solo practitioner, monk-like in his intense focus which becomes comical from our perspective. In Punk we see a figure looking out at us from a decaying and graffitied cityscape. Punk was a collaboration with McHargue’s daughter who painted the bottom portion of the painting in her reach. Both artists keep each other on their toes.

McHargue’s art captures the subjectivity in the familiarity of dreams. It is playful, aspirational, kind of musical, and psychically tactile. It connects the non-threatening steps of a friendly ant on your leg in real life, with subtle and unexpected inspirations of imagination, like a crawling vine that casually puts its arm over your shoulder as you doze off to dream during the day.


Paintings in the Exhibit:

- Big Eagle, 2022. Oil on canvas, 70" x 60" 178x152.4cm 
- Good Luck Frog, 2024. Oil on canvas, 73" x 59" 185x150cm 
- Our Gang, 2021. Oil on canvas, 36" x 44" 112x91.5cm 
- Archway, 2024. Oil on canvas, 52" x 44" 132x112cm 
- Tinker, 2023. Oil on canvas, 52" x 44" 132x112cm 
- Punk, 2023. Oil on canvas, 52" x 44" 132x112cm