Edward Lane McCartney – Chromatic Fantasy: a complement of color

Hooks-Epstein Galleries is proud to present Chromatic Fantasy: a complement of color, an exhibition of mixed media works by Edward Lane McCartney. The exhibition will open at 11:00am on Saturday, December 2, 2017, with a reception from 6:00pm-8:00pm, and will continue through Saturday, January 6, 2018.

In addition, Hooks-Epstein Galleries will host an artists’ discussion between Edward Lane McCartney and Joseph Havel, the Director of the Glassell School of Art (MFAH), Saturday, December 16, 2017 at 2:00pm.

Edward Lane McCartney penned his first musical composition, Fantaisie Chromatique, at the age of sixteen. He was fascinated by the glissando effect—the shift of one pitch to the next—that could be achieved with performance velocity and the blending of proximate notes on the piano. With Chromatic Fantasy: a complement of color, the frequency of tone has been supplanted by the frequency of color and light.

McCartney has been interested for some years in works that are visually kinetic; the viewer’s perception of reality and of experience; and the transformation of accessible media.  In the proximity of small pieces of colored paper placed adjacent to one another, the viewer perceives colors that only exist in his or her own reality.

While moving past the works in a physical space, the Chromatic Interference and Puzzled series in the exhibition become mutable, and colors and tones are distinguished, emphasizing their lack of stasis. They exist multidimensionally, transmuting in time and space in an ever-changing environment of movement and light. All of these pieces present the distal edges of various media, primarily paper and paper products, puzzle pieces, found cardboard, and the foiled boxes in which McCartney’s toothpaste came.

The Chromatic Resonance series projects liminal colors denying their consistency along the pitch of angular boundaries, creating color frequencies that shift, strobe, and resonate—reminiscent of current patterns viewed on an oscilloscope.

In making each of the works in Chromatic Fantasy: a complement of color, McCartney has taken up the mantle of scale and site. Similar in nature and construction, these pieces exist in varied sizes—from feet, to inches, to fractions of inches. Much of his practice encompasses the placement of works on the body.

As McCartney’s concerns are of kinetics and experience, these works can be encountered in symbiosis between site and observation. Recently, his works have moved toward a larger sculptural scale, incorporating mixed media with a focus on color, optical kinetics, and material in both three- and two-dimensional forms.

Edward Lane McCartney resides in Houston, TX, where he has been creating art since 1999. His work is held internationally in various public and private collections. This year, his work was featured in the Back to the Future Invitational, Body Enhancments Invitational, and Student Award Show Juried Exhibition, each at the MFAH.  McCartney’s Media Whore: the persistence of making was named in Art Ltd. Magazine’s Top Ten Shows of 2016.

He continues to study at the Glassell School of Art (MFAH) and served as the Board President of the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, from where he is a former participant in their Artist in Residence Program. He continues to remain active in the local arts community.