Kim MacConnel

Kim MacConnel (born 1946 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) is an American artist who works with painting, sculpture, and mixed media-collage/fabric. MacConnel is a seminal figure in the Pattern and Decoration movement of the seventies, but overall MacConnel’s oeuvre has surpassed being categorized.[1] MacConnel received his BA, with honors, from the University of California, San Diego in 1969 and his MFA, also with honors, in 1972.[2] He is represented by Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.

Career

MacConnel had a lot of trouble starting out as an artist due to the fact that he had to come up against the minimalism of the time in the 1970s. During the Minimalist movement, artists weren’t interested in color or even painting for the most part; MacConnel’s art just wasn’t accepted as serious. It also had partly to do with his material, instead of painting on stretched canvas, MacConnel instead painted on fabric and bed sheets, which he would tear apart and sew back together again. It wasn’t until MacConnel was in an exhibition in Germany that his art became recognized.

"It wasn't really until a German collector who wrote a newsletter for German collectors saw the work in a show that I was in Germany and was overcome by it. He thought it was really brilliant for some reason. And that's when a contingent of Europeans really started looking at what we were trying to do. Particularly in my case, what I was trying to do. And found that it resonated in that area for them as a new avenue into the future, really, of what art making might be. So it was revolutionary in some ways in terms of, like, the status quo".[3]

Exhibitions

Personal life

MacConnel is married to artist Jean Lowe and lives in Encinitas.[5]

Sources

  1. Quint Contemporary Art "Woman with Mirror" Exhibition. Dec. 2010
  2. Visual Arts Department, Univ. California, San Diego
  3. Kim McConnel Gets His Dues, Interview by Maureen Kavanaugh on KPBS. Nov 4 2010
  4. San Diego Visual Arts Network, San Diego Art Prize - list of winners, 12 Dec. 2010.
  5. Thornburg, Barbara (June 25, 1995). "Fun House: Two Artists Pack Their Sleek Home With Fanciful Furnishings and a Sense of Humor". Los Angeles Times.
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