OF RUST AND MEN

OF RUST AND MEN paintings by Renee McGinnis opens Jan. 5th 5:30-7:30pm, Zg Gallery 300 W. Superior, Chicago

I spent much of my childhood riding the Great Plains of central Illinois on horseback or in luxury automobiles of the 1970s and 80s, passing abandoned farms and towns. I was in awe of the grand, magnificent scale of these forgotten places, and became aware of the nature of passing time, beauty and gradual decay.?

With a precise hand, I paint aging, rusted megastructures surrounded by lush botanicals or precious stones of a misdirected beauty, suggesting man’s infallible desire to control nature and his surroundings. The once luxurious ocean liners, the highly sexualized iron ore uploaders and Battersea Power Stations are staged in deceptively beautiful gardens or stricken on turbulent seas. The purity of the water, clouds and flora, juxtaposed with these decaying structures, create a potent marriage of emotions where the viewer can choose to engage in the monument of human labor or take in the serene beauty enveloping it. 

Accompanying the larger works in this exhibition will be a series of thirteen micro-tondos lining the main wall of the gallery, like portholes of a great ship. Each 3 3/4" painting offers an intimate, pristine view of our natural world of clouds, storms, marine animals and plant life, each devoid of any trace of man.