ON BEING BLUE

Recent Works by  JAY MCCAFFERTY

October 6 – December 10, 2016

Reception:

Saturday, October 8, 4 – 7PM

So blue, the word and the condition, the color and the act, contrive to contain one another, as if the bottle of the genii were its belly, the lamp’s breath the smoke of the wraith. There is that lead-like look. There is the lead itself, and all those bluey hunters, thieves, those pigeon flyers who relieve roofs of the metal, and steal the pipes too. There’s the blue pill that is the bullet’s end, the nose, the plum, the whistler, and there are all the bluish hues of death.

      William H. Gass      On Being Blue

TransVagrant and Gallery 478 are pleased to present ON BEING BLUE, Recent Works by Jay McCafferty. The exhibition will open with an Artist’s Reception on Saturday, October 8, from 4 – 7PM.

Electing the neutrality of the grid as an organizing principle, Jay McCafferty has been creating artworks by focusing rays of sunlight on its points of intersection for more than three decades. Restrictive by choice, and process-driven, the work has evolved from an orderly array of cigarette-sized burns punctuating the grid to scatters of charred excavations through multiple layers, to near obliteration of the matrix.

In this new body of work the grid gives way to the maze. Working intuitively over various grounds – all shades, all hues, all blues - the artist is engaged in a complex mapping of imagination. Monochrome works read as arterial networks, man-made or biomorphic, leading everywhere and nowhere. McCafferty’s peculiar art-making ritual, introverted and intensely personal, yields accessible, engaging works capable of varied readings.

Jay McCafferty’s work has been exhibited widely since the 1970s both in the United States and abroad and can be found in many public and private collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, and Newport Harbor Art Museum. Organized by TransVagrant, ON BEING BLUE runs through December 10. For visuals or additional information please call 310-600-4873 or 310-732-2150. Gallery hours are Monday - Friday, 11 AM – 5 PM, and by appointment.