Rodney McMillian: Landscape Paintings

April 3–August 29, 2016 - An exhibition of works by Los Angeles-based artist Rodney McMillian. The exhibition is comprised of a suite of twelve paintings on bed sheets and an untitled video from 2005.Sourced from thrift stores, the sheets that McMillian uses often bear price tags or traces of former owners, and their size alludes to the intimate encounter of bodies in bed. Already laden with traces of personal and corporeal histories, this found bedding is transformed by the artist into works that engage the history of landscape painting. Using leftover paint from construction supply stores, McMillian responds to the absence of bodies in the history of landscape representation; his pours and splatters evoke what he describes as an “abject history of turmoil or the spillage of blood” that is often missing from the pastoral tradition.