Artist Statement
Bill McCarroll's paintings and prints show his interest in the procedural based art of post-minimalism - paint applied layer by layer on canvas to build textured surfaces, sometimes employing corrugated cardboard, in an attempt to maintain perfect control, leaving as few physical traces of the artist's hand as possible. The artist also has an orientation with Pop Art's appropriation or referencing as seen in his editioned, hand colored silkscreen and lithographic prints - the attempt to bridge the gap that otherwise separates high art from mass culture. Born in California, McCarroll's work bears the imprint of his admiration for the mechanisms and inclinations of the art sprung out of the sixties. However, his imagery and presentation maintains an exploration in contemporary life and its constructs.
By consistently using golf imagery, the game continues to play a psychoanalytic function within the artist's daily life: his private, personal passion as a golfer with his public, professional persona as an artist and teacher. The clichés of golf, i.e. Blastout or Full Follow Through which his prints and paintings are often named after, are experiences on the course that translate into metaphors for the angst, tension and stress of our own contemporary life. By copying and re-contextualizing the vernacular imagery of a 1950's graphic artist, the focus is as much on the artist's language and its formal qualities as it is on the content.
- From Curator, Diana Augaitis, Transference Exhibition, 1987
