The pure abstractions of JERRY MCLAUGHLIN
Photo courtesy of Mike Sagun
Jerry McLaughlin lives and paints in the high desert landscape of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Dedicated entirely to pure abstraction, his paintings are characterized by their subtle, restrained palette and their palpable physicality.
Dozens of layers of beeswax, pigment, and ash give rise to their complex yet harmonious surfaces. His works incite our desire to physically touch them. Always navigating the interplay between beauty and darkness, McLaughlin weaves his love of poetry into his process, using insights drawn from language to enrich his work.
The poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, Edna St Vincent Millay, and Constantine Cavafy has been particularly important. Moods and sensitivities are roughly translated into palette, shape, and surface.
Interview by Isabel Hou
Your "White Bog Structures" series uses ash from bog peat and willow fires as pigment. What inspired this unique choice of materials, and how does it influence the final expression of your art?
I’ve worked with ash as an additive in my cold wax and oil paintings for years. On previous trips to Ireland, I’d noticed that bog peat ash had a particularly beautiful warm sienna color, but I had never used it as a pigment, only as a material to add body and texture to my paint. During my residency in Ireland in 2023, I wondered what it would be like to work with it as a pigment, using no paint, and so I did. During that same time, I found out Ireland had banned the commercial harvesting of peat and was proposing willow as an alternative. It seemed a natural follow-up to the question, “How does bog peat’s replacement behave as a pigment?” So, I spent the rest of the residency figuring out how to get these two materials to create shapes, textures, and lines.
These materials can provoke a whole range of questions around climate, culture, connection to one’s environment, and more. They are important and interesting questions. But my early interrogation of ash as a medium was much more about form and materiality. What could these materials do, and how could I use them expressively? So, a lot of the final expression comes directly from the material properties of the ash.
structure no. 49 - 30x22 in, bog peat and willow ash on paper, 2023
structure no. 50 - 30x22 in, bog peat and willow ash on paper, 2023
Your journey from pediatric critical care medicine is intriguing. Do you think your medical background influences your approach in terms of precision and attention to detail, and if so, how?
Yes, it definitely does. Pediatric critical care requires dexterity and precision for a range of procedures. I worked hard to develop those skills. But it’s not just my experience in medicine that drives my precision and attention to detail. I also play the piano, which requires dexterity and precision. I’ve never been particularly athletic. In fact, I’m rather clumsy in my gross motor skills. But I have great fine motor skills, and I love using them.
I’m fascinated by the spontaneity, intuitive movement, and creativity that come from mastering physical skills. Like an improvisational dancer or musician, painters use mastery of their medium and tools to improvise new paintings.
In "Adobe y Negro," you draw inspiration from architectural elements and surfaces in central Mexico. Can you elaborate on how these elements translate into your artistic language and process?
I feel a deep connection with many of the basic and common materials used in Mexican architecture. Materials like concrete, steel, adobe, and plaster. I love their neutral palette and the natural variation in their coloration. I love their surfaces and textures, the way they look and the way they feel against your skin. I love how they look and feel both when they are new and as they age. I love the geometry of modern Mexican architecture, the hard lines and the sharp angles, the light and shadow, the open spaces.
Of course all of this is very formal and focused on materials. Much of my work is. But there is also a loneliness. These humble and common materials are hardly given a thought. These strict and basic geometries feel cool and detached. I think there is a similar loneliness in my work.
adobe y negro (iv), 30x30in, oil, cold wax, wood ash on panel, 2019
adobe y negro (xxiv), 40x40in, oil, cold wax, wood ash on panel, 2023
Given your background in medicine, how does the concept of healing or transformation manifest in your creative process and the themes of your artwork?
Although I can certainly comment about healing and transformation, honestly, I don’t see them as particularly related to my background in medicine, nor do I think of them as significant subject matter in what I do.
Healing is not a theme in my work, but certainly I find healing in the creative process. It’s not something meant for the viewer, simply something I experience through making art. Learning to find freedom, honesty, discovery, and so much more in the process of creating has been tremendously healing for me. I think it always will be.
As for transformation, I think it can be found in my work, my materials, and my process. I use ash a lot, which certainly carries many metaphors around transformation. And in painting I’m trying to turn something internal and intangible into something external and physical, but maybe that can be said of all artists.
I suppose in all the writing and thoughts I have about my work, healing and transformation just don’t really come up much. Maybe they are there, and I’ve simply not seen them yet.
Your series "Los Sonetos" is inspired by the work of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. How do you navigate the interplay between poetry and visual art in your creative process?
It’s not something literal. I don’t paint the poetry I read or use the imagery as source material. It’s much more about accessing a particular place inside me, a certain space that’s right for my painting. Reading poetry, Lorca’s or anyone’s, helps me better understand my feelings and what I’m trying to get at in my work. That process in turn helps me access the space I need to create particular groups of works. Maybe you could call it a kind of meditation, something I do to center myself and focus, and make sure I’m in an honest place for working.
soneto (xx), 46x40in, oil, cold wax, wood ash on panel, 2022
soneto (xiv), 40x30in, oil, cold wax, wood ash on panel, 2021
The "Oscuro" series focuses on all-black paintings, exploring shape, surface, and the manipulation of light. What challenges and discoveries have you encountered while working predominantly with black?
I love working with blacks. It is not one color. Of course, I always knew this but working so deliberately with it I discovered the challenges and joys of making black feel rich and deep. Because it absorbs so much light, it can feel flat and heavy. It can draw energy rather than emanate it. I learned how to bring other hues to black and how many different values can come together to create black. Part of the work is also about how, interestingly, black reflects light, in ways other colors don’t. Certain angles and certain textures reflect or absorb light in ways that create illusions of light value and even strong spectral highlights. It’s a fascinating color.
There has been so much formal exploration in this series, but it’s also a very moody, personal series to me. I had to learn how to use texture and edge to bring emotion and feeling to the work. Black can feel very cold, impersonal. I don’t want that. I want people to perhaps see something impersonal or formal at first, but then realize, no, these pieces are sensitive. They have aspects of loneliness, melancholy, tenderness even.
oscuro (ii) oil, cold wax, and wood ash on panel, 44 x 40 inches, 2019
oscuro (vii) oil, cold wax, and wood ash on panel, 44 x 40 inches, 2022
You have a strong stance on the role of AI in art. How do you envision the future of art in an increasingly digital and AI-integrated world, especially concerning human creativity?
I’m laughing a bit. I suppose I’m developing a reputation for my more “traditional” views. I don’t think I have any great insight into what the future of art looks like. I can say that I hope the future of art moves back toward the personal, the story, the feeling, the object. We have more people, more ways of connecting, more access than ever before. But we are more detached, more digital, more isolated, more angry, and more hurt. For me, art can be at least a partial remedy to that, both for the artist and the viewer. I’m interested in people’s stories, what they think, how they feel, how they got here. And if they’re artists, then I’m interested in what they manage to create out of that, what they create with their own hands.
AI has wonderful possibilities, utilitarian and technical possibilities not even remotely doable by current humans. Certainly I am in awe of what AI can create from a technological perspective. But for me, human intelligence is what’s interesting, what real people make and do. I don’t care what kind of generative art (if you can even call it that) AI can make. I simply find no reason to care about it. No chance, no accidents, no story, no risk, no sacrifice, no joy, no loss, no satisfaction, no pain. Everything I care about what people go through, AI does not.
The tactile quality of your work invites a sensory experience beyond just visual. How do you envision the role of touch and texture in enhancing the viewer's connection with art?
Seeing a painting is mostly a visual experience: color, shape, line, value. But texture is different. Although we can see it, we can physically feel it, something we cannot do with the other elements. In fact, we don’t even need our eyes to experience texture, we can touch it. And touch is powerful. Touch can be tender, soft, sensuous, warm, incredibly intimate. It can tickle and tease. And it can hurt. We’ve all experienced this. And there is an innate desire to touch. We want to rub the dog’s belly, feel the softness of an infant’s cheek, feel our friend's hand in ours, feel our lover's skin against ours. We even want to touch that sweater we might want to buy. Using texture in a painting allows artists to tap into all of that, in a very visceral way. It’s something color, shape, line, and value simply cannot do. I hope the viewer can share in some of this when they experience my work. I love it. Just making texture in my work is powerful for me. It's a physical connection between me and the work, an intimacy.
What advice would you give to artists who are looking to break conventional boundaries and explore unconventional mediums and methods in their art?
Choose materials you want to work with and methods you want to explore. Then, play. Engage in deliberate play for the sake of discovery. There is no substitute for it.
I’m a highly intellectual person, so I value learning, teaching, thinking, but we can’t solely think our way through materials and methods. Things happen that we could never predict. Combinations of methods and materials can produce beautiful, unexpected results. Allowing yourself to explore and discover those through deliberate play is invaluable. Be fearless. Try things that “can’t possibly work.” Then, once you’ve discovered things that resonate with you, find ways to incorporate them into your work..
Looking ahead, what are you excited to explore in your future projects?
Working with ash has made me want to push deeper into materiality, and I’m starting to see possibilities of my work moving beyond just making a series of paintings and instead creating exhibitions that offer a broader experience. I don’t know exactly what all this means yet. I’m embracing that uncertainty for its possibilities. I have two artist residencies this spring in Mexico City. I’m going to use that time to explore what my future projects might be. This is one of the most exciting (and uncertain) times I’ve had in my art career. Look me up in six months and ask me the same question again.
Isabel Hou is a rising senior at Cornell University interested in art, writing, and law. She plans to live and work in Manhattan post-grad. When she’s not in New York, she’s based out of Colorado, where she enjoys the mountains, the art, and the solitude.
