Robert McCauley: American Fiction

Robert McCauley’s solo exhibition American Fiction features work from the 1990s forward. McCauley’s main themes revolve around worlds in collision, addressing topics of cultural displacement and destruction, as well as our relationships with nature and the environment. He speaks to global issues, yet his art has a distinctive Northwest feeling with iconic and familiar subjects such as bears, mountains, and long-lost fishing holes.

McCauley draws from various themes and periods in Western art history and literature. He employs a Luminist style in his romantic yet somber paintings, and easily jumps to the surreal with juxtapositions of the natural world and humankind. He belies the casual viewer through his quirky senses of endearment and humor, but he will lead the more curious and willing into deeper layers of meaning.

The artist challenges past beliefs which resulted in mandates such as ‘Manifest Destiny’ and ‘Westward Ho.’ 

McCauley’s artwork nods to the writings of philosophers such as Umberto Eco (Foucault’s Pendulum) who said, “Everything is repeated, in a circle. History is a master because it teaches us that it doesn’t exist. It’s the permutations that matter.”

Viewers often experience the sensation of being watched – McCauley’s paintings seem to cast a gaze, and we are momentarily still. We are caught in the moment, suspended in limbo, and pointed towards an uncertain future. McCauley wants us to revisit and question history, so we can collectively forge a better destiny.

American Fiction features over thirty-five paintings, drawings, and assemblage works borrowed from regional and national collectors, art museums, galleries and McCauley’s personal collection. The largest artwork, Smallpox Drawings, features nine mixed media drawings, recalling the smallpox outbreaks of the early 1860s that decimated indigenous coastal populations from Victoria, B.C. to Alaska. Beautifully rendered yet ambiguous, they bear witness to life-changing times in this region and the ethics of conquest.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website