Dan McCarthy

Born  in 1962, Dan McCarthy studied painting and ceramics at the San Francisco Art Institute. After moving to New York in 1989, painting became the dominant element of his practice and he became known for his figurative work and his shaped canvases, often in the form of rainbows or clouds, depicting human figures and poking fun at tired old clichés of an endless summer. Through his “facepots”, McCarthy has reconnected with the world of ceramics, employing an intuitive approach that ignores conventional techniques to the point of going in the opposite direction, and that is based on a sensorial and emotional experience, coupled with the almost alchemical nature of his experiments. His “head-vases” are brought to life through multiple firings of their enamel coatings; they sparkle with touches of gold and silver and are embellished with bright colors painted directly in oil or watercolor. Placed on wooden or metal pedestals, meticulously designed by the artist, these sculptures capture all the qualities dear to his heart: emotion, attitude and humor, which in turn allow him to reach out to the greatest number of spectators.  Yet beneath the fixed grins and layers of runny glazing, it is impossible to ignore the clowns’ masks and their dysfunctional veneer of ill-fitting happiness.

Over the past twenty years Dan McCarthy has enjoyed a multitude of solo exhibitions in galleries all over the world, most notably at the Anton Kern Gallery in New York, Venus Over in Los Angeles, the Bill Brady Gallery in Miami, the Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam and the Galeria Marta Cervera in Madrid. His work has been published in several monographs such as Facepots and It’s Always Summer on the Inside. His works feature in numerous private and public collections including the MoMA in New York, the ICA in Miami, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, the Aïshti Foundation in Beirut and the Dakis Joannou Collection in Athens.