Sam McKinniss

Egyptian Violet 

Team Gallery

October 13—November 13, 2016

Sam McKinniss has garnered significant attention with his modest size paintings of resourced photographs he took himself or found here and there. There exists a peculiar romanticism in painting existing images, a fact McKinniss is sure aware of. The New York University MFA graduate absorbs the inspiration surrounding him, turning his interpretations into paintings that seem placid at first sight. Still holding traces from their subject matters, McKinniss’s paintings unfold over close inspection, revealing their puzzlingly complex narratives. An ardent follower of figurative genre, the artist,  however, challenges the painter’s role by solely painting preexisting imagery.

Sam McKinniss, Untitled (Close-Up of Max)

Billed as “melodramatic, campy and operatic” in its press release, this exhibition studies the potentials of brushstrokes and canvases to convey emotion and depth. “My work is about material pleasure. My work is about a miraculous thrill. I get there through color and through form and the coalescence of line and shape and texture and material,” responds the artist when asked whether he considers himself a gay artist on Gayletter in 2013. Titled after a shade of purple appearing in each painting, the exhibition is the artist’s first solo exhibition at Team Gallery’s New York location.