ABSTRACT PAINTER
TO PRESENT WORK

By Genevieve Ryan
Copyright 2010 Virgin Islands Daily News

August 13, 2010 -- St. Croix artist John McCarthy will present his paintings to the public over the next teks at his "Stop Making Sense" exhibition, beginning this evening from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. upstairs at No. 22-23 Prince Street, at the corner of Company and Prince Streets in Christiansted.
The exhibition will be open to the public from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, continuing from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Aug. 20, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 21 and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 22.
THis will be the second time McCarthy has exhibited his paintings. In 2008, he took part in a group show at the Aldo Castillo Contemporary gallery in Chicago. Next month he will exhibit at the Brick Lane Gallery in London.
McCarthy, a 21-year resident of St. Croix, has been painting since he was a child. He currently works as a Realtor at his Gallows Bay company, 4 STAR REAL ESTATE.
A one-time self-described "weekend painter," the artist says he began to spend more time on his art in 2008 when the bottom fell out of the real estate market. Over the past two years he has accumulated some 200 paintings, ranging from the very large -- 7 feet by 5 feet -- to the small -- 18 inches by 18 inches.
Inspired by the art of Jackson Pollock, who was known for his special technique of splattering his paints onto the canvas from above, the abstract oil painter has developed his own method of painting. McCarthy is a former athlete and he uses his strength to forcefully fling the paint directly from the tube onto the canvas, a method he says is made possible by the Caribbean climate, as oil paints are less viscous in warmer temperatures.
The exhibition title, "Stop Making Sense," represents the inexplainable quality of abstract art, McCarthy said.
"To me it's kind of symbolic of my art in a sense that it's not always intuitive, and I think with abstract art you can't always assign any meaning to it," said the artist.
Some 25 paintings will be on display at the gallery this weekend, which McCarthy will swap out for a different set the following weekend. Most of the works will be in his signature abstract style, though McCarthy says he plans to include some of his representational pieces as well, including a portrait of his daughter and a stick figure entitled "The Mango Juggler."
As his works are created outdoors, McCarthy says his paintings are best viewed in natural lighting.
Exhibition attendees will be required to remove their shoes before entering the gallery.
McCarthy's paintings can also be viewed at 4 STAR REAL ESTATE in Gallows Bay, as well as on his website at absolutearts.com/johnmac/



ST. CROIX PAINTER TO SHOWCASE
HIS WORK IN CHICAGO MUSEUM

By Ayesha Morris
Copyright 2008 Virgin Islands Daily News

Sept. 5, 2008 -- Flinging tubes of paint against canvas is John McCarthy’s signature. The resulting streaks, created from drips or strings of Utrecht oil colors, are his abstract imaginings.
“It’s how I prefer to paint,” 45-year-old McCarthy, co-owner of 4 STAR REAL ESTATE in Gallows Bay on St. Croix. “I’m hoping this will be my trademark style.”
That style is being showcased at Chicago’s Aldo Castillo Contemporary Arts Museum where five of his paintings will be exhibited as part of a group show on view today until Oct. 11.
The exhibit is tiled “The Art of Buying Art: Important and Collectable Original Art Under $500.”
The gallery will display McCarthy’s “Cow Skull Sunrise,” “Venus Fly Trap,” “Warhol Does Pollock,” “Yellow Stairs,” and “Syringe Effect: Death Throes.”
His work is among that of more than 20 artists in the show.
“This exhibition is consistent with our curator Aldo Castillo’s mission of promoting and exposing the work of emerging and established world-wide artists and to the advancement of art education for children and the community as a whole,” according to a statement from the gallery.
McCarthy, a former television and print journalist for Channel 8 and the St. Croix Avis, has been painting for 27 years since he got his start in college. Though he was not formally trained in art, the Detroit-born McCarthy studied art history. He has lived in the Virgin Islands for the last 20 years.
During the last two years, he stepped up the focus on his craft.
His action-impact and drip paint technique is inspired by abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock.
“I stand right next to the canvas, use runny paint, and let the wind help me scribble,” he said.
Viewers have sometimes picked out accidental figures in his work, including a snowman, a whale and a Mardi Gras mask.
“Everybody can interpret it in their own way,” he said.
Drawing on a palette of bright colors influenced from living in the Caribbean, McCarthy says he puts down a base of colors onto canvas, then lets the painting lie horizontally next to him on a sawhorse, before using his paint like a projectile.
“There’s been a lot of trial and error,” he said.
In another work, he allowed a painting to sit out in the rain to give it a pock-marked effect, and the artist has also experimented with burying golden Splenda wrappers beneath several layers of paint to distinguish his work.
McCarthy’s first recognition for his art began while a reporter, covering a contest for artists put on by the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts under director John Jowers.
Jowers, on learning that he painted, encouraged McCarthy to submit his work in the contest, which was judged in Puerto Rico.
He submitted a piece created using wind scribbles and a self-portrait that won the competition.
“I did a green head that was supposed to be me,” he said. “The people in Puerto Rico said I should do it on a bigger scale.”
Now, the size of his average painting is 4 feet by 3 feet.
In recent years, McCarthy began sending images of his paintings to galleries throughout the world, but found it challenging since he did not have a resume filled with gallery exhibits.
But, the Aldo Castillo Contemporary Arts Museum expressed interest.
“I’m excited. It’s a dream come true. I always hoped a wider audience could see my work,” McCarthy said.

Island Expressions: John McCarthy
by Carol Buchanan

Copyright St. Croix Source 2008
http://stx.onepaper.com/

Aug. 4, 2008 -- Little wonder that John McCarthy calls himself a pioneer in American "action-impact" abstract expressionist painting, as the splatters and splashes of paint he throws across the canvas recall the working method of that exemplar of action painting, Jackson Pollock.
Not that he set out to emulate Pollock. McCarthy said he happened to spill some paint on his porch one day, liked the way it looked and took it from there.
“I do not deny the accident -- I embrace it," McCarthy said.
And while the resulting canvases remain abstract evocations of gesture, the drips and splatters also suggest imagery to him: a cow's skull in one, a black bee's head in another where strokes and splashes of pink, brown, purple, green, yellow and black burst onto the canvas.
McCarthy grew up in the Detroit area where he began dabbling in charcoals and pastels at a young age. But he didn't focus on it until after graduating from the University of Michigan in 1986 with a degree in philosophy and English.
Landing a job at an ad agency in New York, he took advantage of living in the capital of modern art by taking in work by Pollock, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Joan Miro and Jean Dubuffet.
He had aspirations of writing and becoming "the American Camus" he said. In the late 1980s, he moved to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands to work as a reporter, then on to St.Croix in 1989 and The Avis newspaper and TV channel 8.
In the 1990s he developed his “wind scribbles” style where he allowed the natural action of the wind to convey the paint onto his canvasses.
He started out throwing and dripping on smaller canvasses, with mixed, and messy, results.
"Everything around me was getting slimed," McCarthy said. "It was a waste of paint and canvas."
He now works on three by four foot canvases with undiluted oil paints thrown straight from the tube. McCarthy said the violent throwing motion produces unintended effects on his paintings that he welcomes, as when the force and trajectory of one splash carries another color farther along the canvas.
He also creates craters in the paint by allowing rain to fall on it. And the warm climate on St. Croix helps keep the paint liquid and mobile.
McCarthy has recently expanded the work to include triptychs in which lines of paint continue from one panel to another, suggesting to him a novelistic story line.
"If I had my druthers I would rather not sell them," McCarthy said. "My last painting is always my favorite."
Nonetheless, he is shipping five paintings to the Aldo Castillo Gallery in Chicago for a September show kicking off the art season.
"I'm getting worried about shipping the paintings off," McCarthy said, "They're like children to me."
A partner in 4 Star Real Estate in Gallows Bay, McCarthy's paintings can be seen there by appointment by calling 719-4146 or by visiting absolutearts.com.

...