CASEY McGLYNN | HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

CASEY McGLYNN | HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
August 6-18, 2022 | Upper Floor Gallery 

3045 Granville Street, Vancouver

Toronto-based artist Casey McGlynn's graphically rich mixed media compositions feature a blazing palette and pop culture references brimming with allegory, humour and satire.

Casey McGlynn grew up in rural Ontario, where he would sit in front of the television and draw on old grocery bags and scrap paper tirelessly, creating self-taught surrealist pop art. McGlynn attended the Ontario College of Art and Design; however, he was not enrolled in the visual arts. McGlynn’s work contains reoccurring symbols such as animals from his upbringing, birds from his studio windowsill and numbers that derive from when he memorized math tables in his early years. McGlynn’s work is as much about revealing the truth and expressing emotions as it is about documenting actual fact. Influenced by Jean Dubuffet, Cy Twombly, Basquiat, Marvel comic books, TV, and John Cassavetes films,  he creates symphonic glyphs in rudimentary, raw patterns, evoking rural Southern quilts with a pop/punk edge.

Since 1995, McGlynn has exhibited extensively in Canada, the United States and Europe. In 2005 he had a retrospective of his autobiographical work at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado. Today, McGlynn is firmly established as a critically important Canadian artist and a favourite among private collectors. With over 48 solo shows in Canada, the U.S. and Holland and innumerable international art fair shows, he remains as committed and passionate about his work today as when he first began compulsively drawing as a young child.  

Artist statement:

These paintings have been done over two periods in my life... before and after a big loss and recovery of self... can you, the viewer, discern which is which?... I have liberated my agency and control in my life... my empathetic nature has given me many blessings and many problems that aren't mine to solve... when I turned 50 I could suddenly decipher the difference... I'm on a road to happiness... will you hold my hand... I was called to painting when I turned 25... I've NEVER TURNED BACK    -Casey McGlynn 2022