Marcelyn McNeil Good Day Bad Day

October 10, 2020 – January 16, 2021 John M. O'Quinn Gallery

Exhibition

In Good Day Bad Day, Marcelyn McNeil responds to the formidable architecture of Lawndale’s John M. O’Quinn Gallery through site-specific abstract paintings and sculptures. Through her experimental approach to painting and process, McNeil challenges traditional assumptions about abstraction to produce works that remind us of the lyrical power of painting in an ever challenging contemporary moment.

Essay by and Q&A with Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at The Dallas Museum of Art.

Bios

Marcelyn McNeil holds a BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR) and an MFA from University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work has been shown widely across the United States—including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and Dallas—in commercial, non-profit, university, and museum spaces. Within Texas, McNeil has exhibited in multiple biennials and at San Antonio Art Museum, Galveston Arts Center, Lawndale Art and Performance Center (Houston), Conduit Gallery (Dallas), and others. From 2012-14, McNeil taught painting at the University of Houston as visiting artist faculty. She has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, 100 W Corsicana, and MacDowell Colony. Additional awards include the Milton and Sally Avery Fellowship, Zeta Orionis Fellowship, Purchase Award (The Portland Art Museum), and Community Arts Assistance Program Grant (The City of Chicago); additionally, McNeil has been a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant nominee.

Anna Katherine Brodbeck is the Hoffman Family senior curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA). Since joining the DMA in 2017, Brodbeck has curated numerous exhibitions, including the survey exhibition Jonas Wood (2019); the thematic exhibitions For a Dreamer of Houses (2020); America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape (2019); and focus exhibitions of Sandra Cinto, Ragnar Kjartansson, Alex Katz, Wanda Koop, the Guerrilla Girls, Runo Lagomarsino, Yayoi Kusama, and Minerva Cuevas. She was the venue curator of Günther Förg: A Fragile Beauty (2018) and Laura Owens (2018); and co-curated Truth: 24 frames per second (2018). In summer 2021 she will present Concentrations 63: Julian Charrière, Towards No Earthly Pole at the DMA. Prior to joining the DMA, she worked in the curatorial departments at the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Frick Collection, New York. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and has published widely in the field of modern and contemporary art.