Todd Raymond McKinney
Interview by James Harris
I was so glad I got to see your work in person because when you take photographs of paintings with a digital camera, it tends to flatten them. And, it was really important for me to physically experience them. I think that’s important to you, too.
To me, your paintings are an investigation of modes of abstraction; probing the gesture and impulse. There were also some referential elements in your paintings due to found objects. Can you talk to me about this? I know that your practice is really driven by your medical condition, and I think that’s a very important part of your work.
I was diagnosed about 10 years ago with pseudotumor cerebri. I was reading one day while I was on vacation and started seeing double. I also started getting really bad headaches that I had to sleep off. Then it just got more and more painful. They did an emergency spinal tap and found the pressure inside my skull was a lot higher than it was supposed to be. I was told to lose weight to help reduce the pressure (I eventually lost about 90 pounds), and I started medication. It doesn’t go away, but I luckily still have good days. It makes my hands tremble at times, which makes it harder to do precise things.
While I was at community college, I was doing okay with it. But, by the time I got to Berkeley, I had progressed to a point where it became harder and harder to paint the figure, which was my original passion. I started working with some abstracts and doing drips. Then I used gravity in different ways to make work and investigated how I can still be expressive.
I graduated in 2015. I did some project management at a small company for about a year, but I just wasn’t enjoying that. So I decided to apply for graduate school. I finally let go of the figure and decided to really investigate the gravity painting. I was always inspired by Jackson Pollock. I set up rules that could guide me in my work, but I had wiggle room. It helped me balance between control / losing control and spontaneity. More recently, I started adding mixed media, like the Legos and army men figures.
Stop there for a second. Two of your works are situated in the corner, which is such a deliberate gesture, especially by a painter. It adds a three dimensionality to it.
Also, you’re interested in bringing found objects into a painted space to help with constructing or playing off your visual brushstroke. Tell me a little bit about that.
I guess that would kind of go back to Duchamp, where you can find these objects and they’re ready made, and how can you recontextualize them? Also, I minored in conservation and resources at Berkeley. I’m very concerned with the environment and how we’re trashing the planet. So I wanted to start recycling paint and all these different things. I had a lot of things already saved. It’s a direct link to my personal log of consumption, right? I’ve taken it as far as using most of my old dog toys after they’re eaten up. It’s been really helpful to re-examine what we throw away. Having a social practice aspect to my work is very important to me moving forward; I’d like to be an example to other artists and other people as well.
You’re also using these materials like traditional painting. The yarn and string is almost like your line. You’re laying down the line with an object on the surface of your work. It’s helping you construct space or some sort of spatial relationship.
Yeah, for sure. I did a work about a year ago where I first started using the string. I was very interested in black holes and string theory, so I thought I’d lay out the marks and use the string to accentuate them. I’d used string before but in a reductive way, where I’d lay down the string and rip it out to make a mark.
Including the string makes it somewhat illusionistic. At about 20 feet, you can’t really see it, and at 10 feet the viewer starts to wonder what is there. It’s not fully revealed until you get really close. It’s a way to keep the viewer looking at your work.
As for the corner pieces, I have to credit Mary Ann Peters. She came to my studio. We had a great talk, and she liked the physicality of my work. Others have commented, too, suggesting I go with that and walk the line between sculpture and painting. So, it all adds up to an illusionistic space that draws in the viewer.
You title your paintings with algorithms. For example, the two corner paintings are Algorithm 1637, I Think Therefore (the one with the string) and Algorithm 375, There is No Spoon (the one with Legos).
It’s related to the formulaic ideas I get. When I start a work, I start off with rules. 375 is a reference to Plato, the other ones are referencing Descartes. I’m using history.
Do you come up with the names after the overall composition is done?
I always have a plan from the beginning, but things change as I go. It takes me a long time to figure out if a work is done, as with other artists. I do a lot of sitting and meditating on what I’m looking at. Compositions can change, and sometimes materials change. For example, I wanted to use a red iron oxide in Algorithm 1998, Heavy Mental, but then I realized that wouldn’t work well with what I already had there. So, sometimes the plan doesn’t work out. I have to break my rules, or it becomes some other type of work. I always have a goal, but I’m not set on it.
I was just flipping through the images on my phone of your paintings, and you have a very specific way you like to use color. I Think Therefore is very, very colorful. It’s also kind of intense since it’s a complicated composition. There’s nothing shy about it. It has a physicality and almost an agitated presence.
I feel like tension is really important. I researched optical artists and how they worked with juxtaposing. In this painting, I used orange versus blue. Other painters do that sort of thing, but I’m doing it in a much more specific and intense way. It’s not that I want people to hurt their eyes or anything, some optical art can do that, but I do want to keep them viewing. Maybe they will see some visual fuzz and really try to get why it’s almost like we’re hallucinating 24/7 with our vision since we can only see so much of the light spectrum. I guess I’m alluding to bigger questions in the universe because those interest me.
The Lego painting also has a physicality. There is a topographic element to it with the black and the brightly colored Legos on top then the gray with the lines and the army men. There is a psychological space to it.
That piece was a lot of work. We molded something like 500 crayons to look like Legos. My partner helped me do some of it. Then I was pasting Legos in and painting some of them to look like the other ones.
It was interesting that when I was laying out the army men I got a nostalgic feeling. As a kid, I played with a lot of army men. I guess I’m alluding to us being indoctrinated from birth. The world is open, free, and lovely when we first get here. Then you have to go to school, get a job, pay your bills, and all these different things. I think we should be questioning more.
The two corner pieces have a kind of regimented compositional structure. The third painting in your thesis, Algorithm 1998, Heavy Mental, which is made on four panels, is more physically gestural and cosmological. It’s not as structured. It’s looser. Talk to me about how those are two parts of your practice.
I started with the panels on the floor and did a lot of big pours at the beginning. I started with it being black and white. I wanted to have one work that pointed to the beginnings of painting. Then I added thin layers on top of that. I wanted something more minimal in terms of the materials I was using. There are copper bits in it, some coffee grounds, and there’s charcoal. I also used little bits of iron and magnets to help me make the composition. It’s another way of using gravity at the beginning. The other two paintings are much more what I would call maximalist, where more is more.
Heavy Mental is just as chaotic as it could be while still showing some form and structure to the work. It’s a play on the idea of Abrahamic space, salvation, going to heaven, and those types of things. I’m very interested in space in general and celestial ideas. So I wanted to combine the ideas of salvation with something more organic and the precise way I layered the paint.
When you made that painting, did you complete it on the floor or did you get it started there then assemble the four pieces and unify it?
I put them together at the end. There was some overlap of the paint on the different panels, but there were some areas where it’s clear there is a break, where something ends. I was playing with the idea of tension and trying to keep the viewer looking, which I think is pretty important. I keep wondering if it could work to have two panels on the wall and two off, but I guess I just wasn’t ready to make that jump. I went with my original plan.
So you’re thinking that could possibly extend into the physical space beyond the wall.
Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that. For the Henry exhibition, I was hoping that we could put them in a room with the two corner paintings situated on the sides and this one would sit directly in the middle. It’s been really interesting trying to figure out. I definitely feel like the idea of combining the two elements of painting and sculpture is a practice I can continue for a very long time, so I’m going to keep pursuing that as far as research goes from materials.
You talk about upcycling, taking discarded materials and recycling them into new paintings. It becomes a painterly device or a way to activate the painted space. You mentioned being interested in ecology, but it’s also like there is a theoretical approach as well.
When I reset my practice in California, I learned about a recycling program for paint. I found the local place, which was maybe five miles from my house. I’d go down there every day and pick up a few paint cans of different colors. I told the people what I was doing with it.
The last time I looked it up, the number was 60 million gallons of paint or so just thrown out every year. And you think about the amount of carbon and energy that is being used to create these things that we’re just throwing out. I don’t think Washington has a program for that currently.
So are those the paints you’re using in your paintings now? Are they all recycled paints?
No, I’m using finer acrylics on top, but I like to start using the latex paint when I’m doing thick pours. It’s been a really good practice. I’ve found some Craigslist postings here for paint, and friends will give it to me sometimes. I use it to the best of my ability. Even if it dries out, I’ll try to rip it out of the paint can and cut it up.
Adhere it to the painting?
Yeah, exactly. I just feel like I need to be that sort of example.
I want to do some work with cardboard, too. I started a piece last year. I didn’t finish it, but I’m looking at that route.
But the most important thing is the overall composition, how these various materials can enhance your composition and create a textured surface?
Yes. One example is I Think Therefore. I took an old pair of Levis, ripped them apart, and dyed them. The brain painting was already there in the middle, so I pasted the torn pants in and threaded yarn through it to create more texture. It’s important to note what happens with the lighting, too. If the painting is set correctly, which is hard at times, you also get some shadows happening. I think that adds to the illusionistic qualities for the viewer.
It seems like you’re really trying to engage your audience. It’s like you’re trying to bring the viewer in to see the surface.
Yes, definitely. Around when humanity started using cameras, we started investigating the eyes, how they work with the brain, and what we’re actually seeing. I like the idea of confusing the viewer to some degree. I’m getting them to think about what they’re seeing at different distances. And, if it’s a corner piece, they can move left or right and have a different experience partly because of the elements that protrude.
I’m seeing two bodies of work in your practice. One that is more sculptural and one that is more dreamlike.
It’s fine if someone sees it that way, but…
So you don’t see it that way?
No. I just think one’s much more minimal in terms of how I built the surface up.
Maybe it’s the quality of the tone, the tonal aspect of the work. It’s more of a subtle experience.
Yeah. It’s definitely more subtle. If you think about the idea of going to heaven, it shouldn’t be that violent or overwhelming in terms of visual stimuli. So, I guess it is more peaceful where the other ones are me thinking about my own condition or questioning reality with the Legos and army men.
I want each work to feel strong on its own. Moving forward, I probably won’t do very many flat works. I want to do protrusions that are invading the space to get the viewer to examine the work that much more.
Talking with you, I now see that your practice is about how humans see the world in different ways. Your work approaches the philosophical and the visceral. You want the viewer to be contemplative, to stand there and think about a lot of different broader issues.
I would say the thing that really links them all would be the research and the ideas behind them and not necessarily the materials. I do want people to have some type of spiritual experience and maybe a direct link with the sublime.
I think about Mark Rothko’s work where he made a whole chapel with black paintings. What does it mean to make a black painting and just sit there and look at it, especially in these times when we’re consuming so many images and we’re moving nonstop? I’m a slowpoke, and I feel like we should be slower with certain things. I do feel like it’s good to try slowing people down and sort of force them to really take a look at what they’re seeing and really question. It’s also fine if they just appreciate the materiality and colors as long as they have some sort of experience that’s immersive. I guess you could almost link it to having a religious experience, like a Sistine chapel or something like that. That might be asking a lot.
It seems like you want the viewer to have a time-based experience.
The end product, when I finally decide to let the work go, which can easily take months, shows some of my process because there will be unfinished or imperfect bits: glue left in a place where you see it or a drip that looks like it shouldn’t be there. There’s a performative aspect, and I link that back to John Cage’s work, how he changed the idea of how we come up with ideas as artists and how we put it forward. Having some kind of spontaneity and revealing that process is important to me, especially when you look at it through the lens of me being sick and having these tremors.
I know you said that you can’t be as precise in painting because of your condition, but making those Legos and laying things down have a preciseness to them. So, because you can’t do that with a brush anymore, you’re trying to do it in other ways that you’re able?
You’re absolutely right. It’s another way of responding to the surface and trying to be more direct. And, if I can make the object before and just paste it in, it’s going to be much more precise.
Some of the Legos would break, but I didn’t mind. I just pasted them in anyway. I really liked how, unless you got really super close, you couldn’t tell which are made from wax crayons and which are actual Legos.
The whole thought of going in and doing that with what is a drawing tool is fascinating in itself. It adds another layer to everything you’re trying to accomplish.
Yeah. And I think, moving forward, I probably will work with crayons a bit more.I was surprised at the pigment loads in some of those crayons. I used Crayola, which I guess you could consider a top of the line kid’s crayon. I realized I could do some drips with the wax. I’d heat it up in some way and let it drip straight down with gravity.
I get a lot of ideas with materials. I’m also really interested in doing some work with glass. At one point at UW I took one class with Mark Zirpel, and it was great to think about my practice in a different way.
I get inspired by everything. I get inspired by cooking shows and by physics. There’s a lot of interesting ways to get inspiration, and I get inspired every day. But my time is limited as it is for everyone.
You’ve mentioned gravity a few times, which is interesting when you think about your painting practice: painting on the floor, looking at drips, the idea of melting a crayon. Gravity is such an earthly thing. Tell me a bit about that.
I originally started doing those drip type works at Berkeley. It was a spontaneous thing. I’d bought some black ink and poured it, but it was a weird pour since it went too fast. So I grabbed the painting and turned it. Next thing you know, it became its own form of expression. I kept turning and turning.
I’m definitely interested in playing with the laws of the universe. I’m also really interested in fractals. When you lay some latex paint, which is more water-based, against ink, the ink will fight against it. The resistance forms a natural pattern, which is reoccurring everywhere on the planet. You see it in lungs, arteries, lightning strikes, and even on Google Earth when you zoom out. Fractals are really important.
There’s also chaos theory and other things. We’re getting close to figuring a lot of these things out. It’s an exciting time to be alive.
It is an exciting time. And I also love the idea of science and painting. Painting is such a beautiful thing and science is so intellectually rewarding. People shouldn’t shy away from combining the two since it can reveal so much.
Yes, for sure. I feel like we get boxed in with our society today, that you become an expert in something, but a lot of us have interests all over the place. Why can’t we run with those fully? Like I said, I can get really inspired watching a chef talk about their work on a cooking show, and then I’ll go try something in my practice. Or, I’ll watch a show about physics and become fascinated with how stars and black holes work, so I make a work about that.
I feel like so much work is about the ego and the self, which is fine, too. To each his own. I’m inspired by all the knowledge out there. Even if you live forever, you could never read all the books. It’s impossible.
This might be a good way to end our conversation. I think your paintings provoke the viewer into wanting more. Whether it’s more information, thinking about the ideological concepts behind the work, or bringing in their own ideas. They allow for visual and intellectual searching.
It’s a way to start the conversation and see what else other people think. I hope I’ve opened a door for them, intellectually or visually. I think that’s pretty important. In some ways it goes back to my idea of wanting to be a pastor at one point.
I always try to help people if I can. I did a mural for Make-A-Wish last quarter. It was for a young lady. I took her drawing, changed the composition a little bit, and put it on her wall. It took about three days of work, but it was like a gift to me. It was beautiful to see her face. We can do a lot with the gifts we’re given. It’s not my gift to have but mine to share with everybody.