Allie McGhee serves up two types of work in this show: stretched canvases and wall sculptures composed of paint-encrusted sticks. In comparing the two, the paintings are the more refined where the color is often more muted as opposed to the wall sculptures which are just as often bright and raw. Given the two, my preference is for the latter.  The paintings are very well composed in terms of color and composition. The textures and painting handling are also well managed but the problem with all of this is that they end up looking formulaic. A significant contributing factor to this is the fairly even proportions of the forms within a single piece as well as between the paintings in the show.

Allie McGhee at the G.R. N�Namdi Gallery

Allie McGhee at the G.R. N�Namdi Gallery

By contrast the painted-stick pieces are just the opposite beginning with the rawness of the materials and how they are assembled. The paint appears to be haphazardly applied and its texture is as rough as the materials it sits on which is by no means a pejorative observation; quite the opposite. The color is similarly handled, by turns androgynously composed of equally distributed primaries and earth tones that are primarily opaque.  In this context color takes on the added aspect of a sculptural element.  The sticks are cut or broken and then arranged into forms that suggest found objects informed by a �naïve� esthetic. However, despite a seemingly primitive approach these pieces are quite sophisticated.  Notice for example, how the wall space is engaged through the rough unfinished edges which most of the work establishes in single solidified structures.  However, when McGhee renders a circle from the sticks the empty space captured in the middle becomes a vitally alive non-objective form captured within an objective form.

McGhee�s subject matter appears to be totems or icons in an ancient-meets-modern context. These pieces feel like sacred objects but sacred to what?  With no specific narrative available it is left to the viewer to signify meaning.  Herein lies the content for the work; the universality of the