Encountering his deceptively simple paintings is akin to attempting to discern a phrase in another language where the etymology is familiar yet the easy translation of metaphysical thought to linguistic expression is quizzically withheld.

From Patent Painting by Adriana Furlong, 2023

Tom McGlynn's third solo exhibition with Rick Wester Fine Art, What Gives, shares his evolving transformation of the visual world into essential block forms and color arrangements. The exhibition presents paintings from 2021-2023 in which he continues to playfully resist the importance of observational art-making in his practice. I don't have antagonism with representation, he emphatically states, Rather, he continues, these paintings are representative in their own way, embracing what they are. McGlynn opts to elicit a fleeting desire or an unconscious idea achieved through specific color and formal arrangement. During his impressive career, McGlynn's work has sometimes served as a visual commentary on calculated symbolization and its use as a powerful tool of influence. McGlynn has used his broad knowledge of the history of Modernism and Post Modernism to examine the ubiquitous use of generic visual codes in corporate identity, while incorporating ideas on how language is subverted in order to influence seeing and meaning.

Following the evolution of his work, he chose to sublimate the literal with indices of meaning derived from signs and commercial branding indicators. No longer are the pieces directly referential of corporate logos and by extension, a powerful elite. Instead, McGlynn has transformed his inspirations to produce a minimalist visual statement conveying his stance through the reciprocal relationship of shapes. While the world is entrenched in a period of combative opinions and unrelenting heated discourse, McGlynn's geometric arrangements insist that viewers rely on their own intuition. He strives to avoid strict abstraction or reductive derivations from symbolic recognition, but rather creates forms that signal distant memories of collective generic experiences. McGlynn has continued to develop abstract forms with an uncanny familiarity. Encountering his paintings, the viewer is challenged with finishing an unformed thought or a subconscious memory. This prompt towards an inward reflection and resolution is a hallmark of his compelling work.

REVIEWS:

TWO COATS OF PAINT, Meta-minimalist-abstraction, by Adam Simon

XIBT, Standards (and variations on a formalist theme), by Isaac Aden

THE BROOKLYN RAIL: ArtSeen - Tom McGLYNN: What Gives, by Louis Block