J Michael McGuirt’s new show hanging in the halls of Harbison Theatre says his show was inspired by none other than his hometown, Camden, SC.
“I was born in Camden, raised in Camden. Love Camden and I kind of alluded to being in the area. You’re exposed to a lot of art; got the Fine Art Center there and a lot of musical programs, so I was raised around that and inspired by that, and then Camden in itself is a really beautiful town,” says McGuirt.
McGuirt is a self-taught artist who initially set out for a degree outside of the art field, yet art was continuously a part of his life, and so he took hold of that. He started with sculptures but it wasn’t until a few years ago that he would discover the medium that would be found in a majority of his work.
“I went to Furman University and have a business degree, but I’ve always been creative. … I’ve actually made sculpted dolls before, a long, long time ago; but probably about four years ago I was introduced to acrylic painting and I was like, ‘I love acrylics.’ And they dry fast and you’ve got to really work with it, unlike oils. You know oils take a long, long time to dry and, I had tried an oil painting when I was in college. I just went and bought supplies and was like, ‘I’m gonna do an oil painting,’ which of course didn’t work out. I was like, that’s just really juvenile looking you know, no classes or whatever,” McGuirt explains.
Since the decision to work with acrylic paint, McGuirt has developed a very unique technique with his work. Rather than thinning his paint with a paint thinner, he simply uses water and works with his painting while it is completely wet, rather than waiting for layer after layer to dry as typically done with acrylic paintings.
“… I really want to work with color and not [be] so constrained. So, I started watching it and messing around with it. And there’s a lot of people who do the flow work now and they make products that are thinned acrylic paints, and so they’re layering them like- well, I want to do that but I want to do it a little differently. So, it took about a year and a half to develop the technique … You’ve really got to get all of the motion and the life and the depth, all at one time and that was the trick – [that] and controlling. You’re thinning the paint and letting it flow …,” says McGuirt.
On September 7, 2018, Harbison Theater opened a gallery exhibition for McGuirt’s collection known as “Form and Flow,” in which McGuirt’s new technique is amply exhibited. Harbison began the process of hanging art on their lobby walls nearly three years ago, however, it wasn’t until Executive Director, Kristen Cobb joined the team nearly a year ago that the art has really began to take off, starting with McGuirt.
“I’ve known Mike McGuirt for pretty much, most of our lives, 20 plus years. And I’ve really watched him evolve as such a talented artist and the type of work he does is so fascinating … He approached me about doing the show and I really loved the idea of having his handmade robots,” Cobb says.
