Many moods of plastic ooze into art

McEnroe draws out 'built-in content' in fringe-seeking attempt to astonish

Mary Voelz Chandler, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Sneer at plastic all you like, but John McEnroe finds authenticity there, whether it is in the form of resin, gel, urethane, fiberglass, polyester, acrylic or just a bunch of his children's toys that are ready to be recycled into a work of art.

Now, it's plastic sheeting, which McEnroe melts with a blowtorch to the point where it sags into exaggerated and effusive shapes, slathers with a combination of heated metallic paint and solvents, and creates work he likens to the rococo paintings, furnishings and architecture that drove design over the top in the early 18th century.

The result: six sprawling silvery wall-hung compositions in "Rococco Nuovo," or "New Rococo," at Plus Gallery.

"I look for materials with built-in content," McEnroe said recently, sitting in the studio he built next to his home in the Belmar Gardens section of Lakewood. "It's as simple as seeing a particular material and noodling out its potential."

In this case, the many moods of plastic have caught his attention.

"I swim against the stream," he said. "I always look for the fringe of what's acceptable. What can I get away with. I'm always trying to astonish myself."

McEnroe also has worked in tile, a result of his owning a tile-setting company that takes about half his time and that led to the series "American Standard." "I'm in tile supply houses all the time. How long can you talk about the Broncos? There is the tedium of it."

McEnroe, 38, moved to Colorado in 1995 after earning a master's degree in fine arts from Ohio State University and a bachelor of fine arts from the University of Kansas.

While teaching at Metropolitan State College of Denver, he struck up friendships - and worked for - various artists, and eventually joined the now-defunct co-op ILK. The group of primarily Metro grads was known for its emphasis on the use of material and workmanship, and McEnroe fit right in, exhibiting works that involved objects as diverse as washing-machine agitators and thousands of colorful plastic plates.

"One of the important elements of the material I choose is memory," he said. "The memory has no aesthetic yardstick. The lack of aesthetic judgment in your memory allows you to like something that is not beautiful."

The mix of tile work, increasing numbers of public art commissions and pieces for exhibitions - from the show at Plus to American Burka, a sculpture he made for the 2006 "Decades of Influence" show organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver - fills his schedule. To a point: "As an artist, I'm around here a lot more than the rest of the men in the neighborhood. People come over and ask for help."

It also offers an opportunity to hew to his Kansas roots - "I hand-seeded the yard" - and spend time with his wife, designer Tara McEnroe, and three children, ages 3, 4 and 6.

"I like the idea that we're a regular family," McEnroe said.

From being a kid who loved to draw to painting birds, studying ceramics and working as a production potter (think chip-and-dip bowls and potpourri burners), McEnroe eventually made the shift to conceptual art while in graduate school.

"My thesis piece was anti everything I was taught. It was a non-exhibit of non-things. I try to keep some of that freshness in what I do."

Rococco Nuovo

• What: New work by John McEnroe, with "The Plane upon which events happen," new paintings by Bruce Price, and "Stop Sign," paintings by Evan Colbert

• Where and when: Plus Gallery, 2350 Lawrence St.; through May 26

• Of note: Artist talk 6 p.m. May 18

• Information: 303-296-0927; plusgallery.com

Speaking of McEnroe

"He wasn't just doing a job for us. He's the smartest kid on the block at the end of the day. He plays the Kansas farmer, but he'll surprise you. He does a lot of things with plastic, but they are always different."

John Grant, former administrator of Denver's Percent for Art Program, who worked with McEnroe on the giant three-piece Model State: A Local Cosmology installed in the Colorado Convention Center.

"A lot of artists create a signature style, and what everyone says is he's always doing something different. It's different, but it's based in the same set of principles and ideas."

Ivar Zeile, owner of Plus Gallery.

Mary Voelz Chandler is the art and architecture critic. Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677