Todd McKie

During an artist residency at Boston’s Gardner Museum in 2000, McKie jilted the Renaissance masterpieces, only to be seduced by the boldly stylized patterns of Mrs. Gardner’s hoard of lace. In white pencil on black paper, McKie creates a lacy look via decorative borders, subtle shading,
stripes, and cross hatching resembling lace mesh. But his impish designs depict cartoony potato-heads stacked like stone totems, wildly patterned beetles, giant dancing flowers, a couple of bird people having a romantic liaison around a birdbath. It’s the crossroads of highfalutin modernist abstraction and child’s play.

GREG COOK