The "Electric Paintings" of Clive McCarthy

October 23rd, 2014
Starts 6.30 - 9.30

An evening salon

Fourteenth St Studios
270 14th St
San Francisco, CA 94103

Clive McCarthy's work is a fine example of technology meets art. If this is the road we are inevitably going down then you will enjoy McCarthy's sublime computer generated image paintings of McCarthy.

He custom builds computer systems to generate images, producing sensual, painterly paintings on flat LCD screens that morph endlessly that can be hung in large or small in spaces.

Each work has up to a thousand photographic based images that McCarthy has taken himself. He then writes the code to "paint" them into a random sequence that continues indefinitely. So, for those who tire easily of art that they buy this opens up the possibility of literally watching a million different images slowly present themselves and then fade into another equally sumptuous sequence. They are one of a kind pieces, installed onto a wall and turned on simply by a switch. McCarthy can use screens as large as 75" x 45" and the work automatically configures itself for the display they are connected to, making it easy to move a work from one screen size to another. They sit as comfortably as any pedestrian home entertainment system in an interior and yet they light up the room with a seductive living painting. Unlike a video installation work that must loop around after 10-15 minutes, McCarthy's paintings bleed into slow moving sensual pleasure domes, revealing every brushstroke that goes into the satisfying process of painting a picture.