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Press Release: Marcus McAllister March-April 2009
Mar 2009
MARCUS MCALLISTER
DREAM PASSAGES
A Break in Time from Another Place
**Extended until 30 May**
Mumford Fine Art is pleased to present DREAM PASSAGES: A Break in Time from Another Place, the first solo show in the UK of Paris-based artist Marcus McAllister. The paintings take the viewer on a journey of the night – dream characters, figures and places are presented in paintings on canvas and sketchbook pages.
The rabbit is the prevailing figure in the exhibition – appropriately timed with the show taking place around and throughout Easter. Rabbits are universally used as a symbol of fertility or rebirth, and have long been associated with spring and Easter (also the Easter Bunny). McAllister draws a mythological association between the rabbit and moon – as specifically witnessed in paintings in which the rabbit is drawn in the moon or sky –which stems from Chinese and Japanese traditions including rabbits being one of the twelve celestial animals in the Chinese Zodiac for the Chinese calendar. Several pieces recall children’s literature with Alice’s Rabbit (I & II). Human beings and other animal characters are also depicted.
Up to thirty works will be on display in Mumford Fine Art’s Rooftop Gallery, and present an accessible exhibition with prices ranging from £200-£1400. The exhibition is free and open to the public.
About the artist
The artist, known for having a sketchbook continuously draped around his arm - that is, if the book is not being actively jotted in and painted on– originally hails from Arkansas, in the Deep South of the USA – as does Mumford Fine Art’s Gallery Director, Susan Johnson Mumford. The two met in July 2005, when both had been living in Europe for a number of years; Johnson Mumford had an exhibition of British artists in Little Rock, Arkansas, and McAllister had several exhibitions in the South at the time.
Following a four-year stint in New York City in the mid-1990s, McAllister has resided in Paris, France, for more than a decade. He regularly exhibits in both France and America, and holds a weekly tea in his Paris studio. Indeed, American artists have long had a love affair with Paris, most famously in the late 19th Century when artists such as James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer, were resident.
