Patrick McDonnell
opening reception: Saturday, November 16 • 3-5pm
artist talk & book signing: Saturday, November 30 • 3pm
About Patrick McDonnell
Patrick McDonnell: creator of the worldwide syndicated comic strip, MUTTS; New York Times best selling and Caldecott Honor winning children’s book author (Me…Jane, a biography of Jane Goodall), painter (2021 solo artist exhibit at Ohio State University), and award-winning playwright. McDonnell has collaborated on books with Marvel Comics, Eckhart Tolle, and the Dalai Lama. He is a board member for the Charles M. Schulz Museum and D&R Greenway Land Trust, an animal activist, and faithful dog walker.
curator statement, Charles David Viera
Art often takes time to be fully understood. We have all left a theater suspecting that the film we had just seen was something special, even though we didn’t quite understand exactly what we had witnessed. This was the case for me with Patrick McDonnell’s paintings.
When I was first invited to visit Patrick’s studio, I was not prepared for what I was about to see. Patrick had emailed me some images of his paintings and, though they were interesting, I didn’t really get the full impact when viewing them on a 14-inch computer screen.
Upon entering his studio, large canvases that burst with color filled the space, accentuated by his vigorous brush stroke. There was an energy there that could only be created by an artist whose work had been confined to a five-inch, black-and-white rectangle for thirty years, a freedom felt that he later confirmed. I then recognized characters from various comic books that I, as one that has always appreciated that medium, recognized immediately as Marvel superhero characters placed strategically throughout the work, some unfinished or painted over. The linear quality of his line contrasted and created tension with his bold strokes and his Matisse-like handling of layers of color. They were magnificent, and as one that knew only of his work on the widely syndicated “MUTTS” comic strip, I was totally unprepared — I was only starting to understand the scope of what he was doing. I knew there was more going on in the work, but what? I should have known better, for as a cartoonist there is always a good story associated with the image.
A few months later, The Super Hero’s Journey was published. Written and illustrated by McDonnell, the book brings the reader back to the initial creation of an American ethos that is now casually referred to as the “Marvel Universe”. Patrick’s story and illustrations captured the wonder and possibilities of the comic book world that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were creating. His interjection of quotes from philosophers and spiritual leaders gives The Super Hero’s Journey an almost biblical quality. Picasso said that “Everything you can imagine is real”, and that is how it was for those of us that were reading those early Marvel books for the first time and McDonnell’s publication beautifully delivers that moment to the reader and, in turn, a better understanding of his paintings.
These paintings capture that moment of wonder with fragmented images appearing and disappearing like thoughts and memories into a history of paint and color. His purposely childlike drawings of the Marvel characters create a time capsule that takes one back to the days when, as children, our own clumsy drawings demonstrated our need to involve ourselves more intimately with that world and its heroes. McDonnell masterfully juxtaposes those characters to create messages of hope, fear, humor, and so many other emotions linked to the human condition, all blended with a Basquiat-like intuitive primitivism which creates imagery that is beyond contemporary.
As mentioned, art often takes time to be understood and appreciated. Patrick McDonnell’s paintings, “MUTTS” strips, and books contain multilayered insights to himself and our culture and beckon us to revisit them again and again.
