Roy McMakin: A Jeff Mitchell Vase
Current exhibition
Overview
Quint Gallery is pleased to present A Jeff Mitchell Vase (2006) by Roy McMakin for ONE at 7722 Girard Avenue (La Jolla). The work consists of six photographs capturing six angles of a ceramic vase made by artist Jeff Mitchell.
Roy McMakin’s multivalent practice encompasses found and fabricated furniture, sculpture, drawings, photography, houses, and everyday objects. His work exists in an era that still tries to separate art from design—with McMakin often resisting categorization and inhabiting both simultaneously. This approach allows space for surprises and even contradictions, inviting viewers to reconsider the many layers of resonance in everyday objects. Like many of the pioneers of Light & Space and Minimalism—particularly Southern California figures such as Robert Irwin—that inform his work, McMakin is concerned with how objects and spaces shape experience, though his approach filters these perceptual concerns through the lens of domesticity, craftsmanship, and emotional memory. But while these legacies often embraced industrial materials and impersonal form, McMakin introduces warmth and intimacy to familiar forms. With the approach of a craftsman, he brings a detailed complexity to his work, imbuing each object with meaning and mystery.
In his photographic work, McMakin catalogs and preserves domestic objects with the same precision and sensitivity that characterize his broader practice. At first glance, the six photographs of A Jeff Mitchell Vase may appear to be straightforward depictions. However, each image is in fact a digital composite, created through a meticulous process of photographing the object from a single angle nearly one hundred times. These images are then digitally stitched together to eliminate 3-point perspective and the optical distortion of the camera lens. The result is a photograph that seeks to represent the object as faithfully as possible—yet still reveals the labor-intensive process behind its creation.
Roy McMakin (b. 1956) received his MFA at the University of California, San Diego in 1982 and founded the Domestic Furniture Company in 1987 in Los Angeles. McMakin’s work is featured in the collections of major museums around the United States including: the Hammer Museum of Art, University of California, Los Angeles; the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; the Museum of Modern Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He now resides in San Diego, CA.
Selected Works
