Join us for a gallery talk with Gordon McConnell as he discusses his new work in this exhibition.
Exhibtion Dates: April 4 – March 24
Kirks’ Grocery is proud to present Never Really Cowboys: New Work by Gordon McConnell. Gordon McConnell has always looked at and thought about the mythical Old West through the lens of a contemporary artist. He is influenced by the postmodernism of his generational peers, the “Pictures” group, and, more recently, the stylistics of early 1960s Pop Art. Like artists of that era, McConnell treats mass-produced imagery as readymade material. His sources are frames from movies, promotional stills, advertising graphics and comic books. Lately, he has been reprocessing images from some of his own earlier monochromatic paintings and painted over old canvases, sacrificing the old for something new.
In 2024, Gordon McConnell manipulated images digitally before referencing and interpreting them on canvas, using varied techniques and formal strategies to serve the needs of each composition. The experience of making each piece informed the process and decision-making for the next. Masculinity is a theme—in poses and action, and varied styles. Stagecoaches and the excitable draft animals pulling them are shown in a posterized rendering and in comic book style-made-large with bold colors, pronounced texture and surface variation.
The Western Horseman paintings in this exhibition derive from 1980s Marlboro magazine ads. Western Horseman #2, with the yellow slicker, comes from the edition of Newsweek that contained Mark Stevens’ landmark article on the Montana art scene—featuring Theodore Waddell and Patrick Zentz among others, themselves looking like Marlboro men posed on their ranches.
Despite appearances, the riders are never really cowboys: they are actors playing lawmen and outlaws, stuntmen driving teams, handsome models (sometimes real ranchers) in stylized Western gear pushing cigarettes, and comic book characters drawn by New York illustrators.
