December 01 – January 19, 2008

Opening reception: December 1, 6–8 pm

Artist Talk: 6:30 pm

+   ARTIST TALK

Lora Reynolds Gallery is pleased to present its first exhibition of new sculptures and photography by Roy McMakin. Works in the exhibition A Breadbox and a Mug, Each Depicted in Sculpture and Photography will investigate what it means to know and describe an object.

McMakin digitally photographed every inch of both found domestic objects and overlaid the images to create a true-to-scale composite while simultaneously erasing 3-point perspective. This process is the artist?s attempt to reproduce the object in the truest way possible. The resulting images reveal the details, dents, scratches, marks and wear-and-tear, rendering the "everyday" mysterious, elegant, and even beautiful. Here McMakin is in line with the great photographers Walker Evans and William Eggleston. His process also reveals the impossibility of a photograph holding an object however measured the attempt. This is only the third exhibition in which McMakin has included photography since the early 1980?s.

In showing sculptures alongside the photographs, the artist allows us to see the bends and curves of the 3-D objects in contrast to the flatness of the photographs. McMakin has dissected both the breadbox and the mug into multiple pieces, suggesting one look more closely at these nostalgic objects. His pastiches function much like memory – by building a truth in pieces. What was once a single souvenir mug meant to bring back memories of the time and place it represents, becomes splayed out in various formations in an attempt to call attention to the thing itself.

Roy McMakin lives and works in Seattle where he owns and operates Domestic Furniture. He completed his BA and MFA (1982) at the University of California San Diego. His work is included in numerous important private collections and he has been commissioned to make work for the J. Paul Getty Museum, the University of California San Francisco, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Seattle Art Museum, and The Henry Art Gallery.