Rodney McMillian’s Landscape Paintings at Aspen Art Museum

Rodney McMillian, ‘Origins,’ acrylic, tempera and vinyl on canvas, 88 in. × 63 1/2in., 2013. | Photo courtesy Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects 223.5 × 161.3 cm

Through June 28, the Aspen Art Museum in Aspen, Colorado, presents Rodney McMillian: Landscape Paintings. The exhibit hones in on artist and CalArts alumnus Rodney McMillian’s (Art MFA 02) painting practice, assembling pieces that address the human body in landscape.

The paintings in the show were made with gallons upon gallons of swirled paint poured on sheets, bedspreads and blankets, creating three-dimensional, arguably sculptural pieces. In some works, the paint has managed to cascade onto the floor.

“My use of the bedding is locating the body in a domestic space, and the bedding also points to issues around class,” McMillian said to the Aspen Times at the exhibit’s opening reception. “Bedding also goes to the pleasures we have in bed like sleep, reading and sex.”

More from the Aspen Times:

The show makes excellent use of the museum’s smallest gallery. The tight quarters suit McMillian’s spewing, hefty canvases, creating an immersive experience in his world of massive saturated sheet landscapes. Wherever you turn, they wash over you—often two and three at a time.

McMillian is a Los Angeles-based sculptor, painter and performance and video artist. His work explores boundaries demarcating class, economic status, culture and their relationship to the physicality of the human body.