Featured Lobby Artist--Lorrie McClanahan

Lorrie McClanahan is a painter and photographer based in Fort Worth, Texas.  She is a graduate of the University of North Texas, with a BFA in Painting and Drawing and is currently working on an MFA in Painting at Texas Christian University.  For seventeen years she painted murals and portraits in and around the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  Prior to that she worked as a technical illustrator for an aerospace company.

Her artist statement:  Most of my paintings begin with photographs I’ve taken through the years of strangers in public settings.  While traveling, I find I am often more interested in the people who gather at landmarks than I am with the landmarks themselves. Recently I’ve begun eliminating any site reference and setting these tourists against an abstract or single color background, allowing the viewer to question or reach their own conclusions about what is happening in these paintings.

The abstract portions hopefully transform a mundane snapshot into something more intense, perhaps even traumatic.  At the same time, there is something rather absurd about people mingling with or observing paint.  The paint (and painting) is part of the content of my work.  Process can be observed in drips, layers and collaged elements. The colors I use are often otherworldly.    Attempts by the viewer to make sense of the scene are challenged by the abstract passages. My aim is to render a convincing person, crowd or event but put in enough disconcerting elements that the painting can be studied on multiple levels.