interview

On Chris McGinnis’s Art

Dr. Kubilay Akman

Kubilay Akman: The urban/architectural abstractions are playing an important role in your art. Can you explain to us please why you are attracted to architecture?

Chris McGinnis: Well, Initially I was attracted simply to the hard edges and diagonal forms that are found within any urban architecture. However, After I began to paint and study architecture, I noticed a more intimate connection with certain spaces as opposed to others. This led me to explore the idea of personal attachment and memories that could be triggered simply by seeing a familiar building.  I then began to study novelists and philosophers such as Marcel Proust and Gaston Bachelard who have contrived similar theories through sound, space and other senses. At this point I still feel that I have only scratched the surface of future possibilities within my subject matter.

KA: We had a common Croatian experience last Fall. It was very productive for me in sociology, art theory and also my curatorial projects. In retrospect, how did your experience in Croatia influence your work? What is your opinion regarding socialist architecture?

CM: For me, studying in Croatia was a life changing experience.  Not only did I have the chance to explore a place vastly unlike the United States, I also had the opportunity to prove to myself I was able to do anything I put my mind to.  While I was there I felt that I truly began to understand paint.  In the past I had worked primarily with mixed media and severe abstraction which did not afford me some basic knowledge of paint.  Due to the situation of limited material in Croatia, I was forced to return to more traditional paint on canvas.  I also made the decision to begin painting spatial depictions rather than complete abstraction.  This was probably the first step toward where my work is now.

KA: You are from America, socialism is very different from your society. Did you feel that you had entered another galaxy while walking through ex-socialist countries and near socialist architecture?

CM: I’m going to answer the second part of question 2 along with the third question.  My initial opinion regarding the architecture found in Croatia is that these buildings feel more like monuments than living spaces.  There was a strange aura surrounding them, a feeling of belittlement when standing next to most living blocks.  Structurally, it was easy to tell these were not made to be aesthetically pleasing, but rather to serve a simple purpose.  In some ways I feel like they are monuments. Monuments to both a lost cause and to the failure of a great IDEA but a failed one nonetheless.

As far as feeling “lost in another galaxy”, well I have felt that way in my home town at times, let alone in another country.  But yes, I did feel like a stranger in a very strange land. However that was precisely the situation I wanted to be in. You can truly find out what you’re made of when you’re put in a situation extremely different from what is comfortable.  Having had that experience I feel closer to the type of knowledgeable person I want to be.

KA: You are also musician. Can you give some information on your musical activities?

CM: Unfortunately, music has recently taken the back seat to my painting.  I still love to play and do perform periodically but my days of 4 shows a week in 4 different states are over.  The reason being, I realized last year that I now feel the drive to paint, equally as strong as I felt the drive to play when I was performing frequently.  Knowing that, I spend most of my time painting and researching gallery spaces.

KA: Do you think there are some gates between different fields of artistic expression? I mean does your music inspire your paintings, or are you inspired musically by some of your paintings?

CM: It’s interesting that you mention that.  I have been recently kicking around the idea of pairing certain paintings with either new songs or old ones if I find the right fit.  Obviously music has extreme nostalgic qualities. I would say much more so than any other stimuli.  Therefore the inclusion of my original music, which speaks often of times past, could be another route to expressing my theme.  I have not yet begun this step, currently I am exploring collage utilizing news articles as textural aspects within my work.  But I will keep you posted on my discoveries with pairing music and my paintings.

KA: Do you have any digital works? What do you think about digital art?

CM: Aside from simple academic studies done for class work, no I do not work in digital media.  However I do utilize programs like PhotoShop, as any other business would, to create promotional material.  The opportunities are countless in the digital field, that’s for sure.  I don’t particularly have a desire to take my work in that direction but I know a lot of artists are.  I have seen some impressive digital prints in a few galleries but not a whole lot.  I know many digital artists go the commercial route, getting involved with graphic design and web design for large companies.  I personally would like to see more conceptually based work enter the gallery scene.  As for my thoughts on digital works in general, any media, if used interestingly and innovatively can be successful in fine art.  I think that since the birth of video art in the 1960s and the acceptance of recent technologically innovative video artists like Mathew Barney, anything is fair game. I am however, interested to see how the Internet could be utilized as an art media rather than an art tool.

KA: If you had the authoritative power, what would you like to change in the art world?

CM: The gross difference between the value of any small work done by a widely recognized successful artist, and that of an unknown professional working his or her but off and making spectacular work that nobody hears about.  There is no good reason why one artist’s work should be worth 3 million dollars, and another’s of equal quality be worth 3 dollars.  If I could change one thing it would be that people buy work because they like it, not because of the signature on the back.