Meet Mike McLain | Visual Artist and Curator.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mike McLain and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mike, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
The first risk I took in my art career was going back to school at the age of forty. This meant starting with community college, moving on to university for a bachelors, and finally to grad school. A friend once joked that my mid life crisis ended with an MFA rather than a sports car.
The second risk was moving to California from Illinois for grad school at the Claremont Colleges, then making the decision to remain in So Cal after graduation. How could I not? The opportunities in LA for an artist by far eclipsed those in the Midwest. As my professional life began, I realized that these risks were just the beginning of those that a career as an artist and curator would make necessary.
As an artist, it is necessary to constantly step outside of comfort, walk through fear, and embrace risk as a necessary step toward success. Each project begins with an idea, continues with a decision to pursue that idea to fruition, and leads to exposure to criticism and the possibility of rejection in the act of taking that idea public as finished work. To be successful, an artist must learn to leap into uncertainty and allow it to propel them forward rather than keep them bound to fear-born stagnation. Without risk, there is no real reward.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am interested in pattern, seriality, randomness, imperfect formalism, and the visually discordant effects often brought on by their combination. In my work, commercially produced fabric motifs provide the background for grid- and stripe-based geometric abstraction with Op qualities. A formula of sequential relationships determines where color is added within the framework of the fabric’s patterns and its interaction with the overlaid drawn system. As a result, the final outcome is left to chance.
In 2017, I did a residency with Shoebox Projects at LA’s Brewery Artists Lofts. In that project, Carolina Calling, I deviating from my usual practice and took a deep look at my personal relationship with white privilege and institutional racism as a white man growing up in the US. My goal was to identify racism in my own background and take responsibility for ways that I have perpetuated attitudes inherited through socialization as a member of the privileged class. It was a difficult but immensely rewarding project culminating in a show that happened to open on the day an anti-fascist protester was killed by a white supremacist in Charlottesville, Virginia. Carolina Calling has been shown at several institutions since its debut. I am most proud of and humbled by this work, more by what I learned in the process than from the objects and installations themselves.
Currently, I am making 2D objects with 3D elements consisting of layered, woven fabric strips or applique quilting on stretched canvas. The altered support is then painted using unexpected and sometimes dissonant color combinations. The effect is marred beauty, repellent attraction, ordered chaos. This strategy is an adoption of Dadaism’s absurdist reaction to world events that defy comprehension. I see it as escapism with barbs. My intention is to provide the viewer momentary refuge from the constant barrage of ever darker headlines we are inundated with daily.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
As a tour guide to out of town visitors, I would include a drive down Wilshire from city to shore (with stops at LACMA, Craft Contemporary, and The Hammer), Santa Monica pier and beach, Chinatown (including lunch at Phillipe and dinner at Yang Chow), The Getty, the view of the city from Elysian Park, the Arts District, Canter’s Deli, the Hammer Museum, Huntington Library, West Hollywood (including a visit to Tierra del Sol Gallery), and any number of world-class independently owned art galleries throughout the city.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
So many people have been important throughout the course of my career. First, there were the friends and family who encouraged my insanity in pursuing an art education in middle age. Their support made all the difference in my self confidence level in the beginning of this journey. Second, the educators. Darby Ortolano, J.A.Logan College, ceramicist and teacher, led me to sculpture and Miles Davis. Alex Lopez, sculpture professor and mentor at Southern Illinois University, both challenged and supported my efforts. David Pagel at Claremont Graduate University changed the way I approach writing everything, from an artist statement to an email. Rachel Lachowicz, my MFA thesis chair. Meetings with her sometimes felt like fencing matches, but I always ended up getting the point. She taught me to be prepared to answer any question about why I make what I make, giving me a better understanding of my own work as well as that of others. Constance Mallinson gave me the advice that still resonates when she said “Mike, they’re your rules. You can break them”. In my professional life, William Schinsky gave me the opportunity to curate three large survey shows (the LAnCV series) at the Coachella Valley Art Center in Indio, giving me the experience I needed in my further curatorial outings. Frederick Fulmer performs the thankless task of maintaining the Asher Grey online gallery on Artsy where he shows my work. Conchi Sanford, the creator and director of the artist-run entity Erect Walls, who has given my work places to be seen. All of the artists who have participated in my exhibits and taught me so much about the importance of professionalism. Amazing painter and friend Tan Jazz Mont whose conversations have made drives to LA from the IE seem much faster, and who patiently listens to my angst rants and calls me on my BS. Lastly, my two life partners who have been the tail wind behind everything I do.

Website: currently under reconstruction.

Instagram: jmikemclain

Facebook: Mike Mc Lain Art

Other: Asher grey Gallery, Artsy