CityBeat cover artist Jan. 21
Oceanside artist Tim McCormick is probably one of the region’s most well-known painters, at least in the cooler contemporary art world. His piece on our cover this week, “Pitfalls of Modern Romance” — which is actually a huge 12-foot painting that we cropped in on in order to fit our specs — is an older (as in 2004) example of his chaotic yet balanced paintings.
McCormick’s work explodes with emotion. That’s because he’s a sensitive guy who sees the world as kind of crazy and nutty.
When asked about “Pitfall of Modern Romance,” McCormick says, “basically, it’s a heartbreak love song.”
Then he had to go, most likely to get back to work on one of his newer, darker and deeper paintings, which he started on after taking about a year off in order to regroup and sort of get away from the madness of the art scene. McCormick’s artist statement is below, and to see more of his work, visit www.timmccormickart.com. The piece is also currently on view as part of the Oceanside Museum of Art’s big Lowbrow show, which opens this Saturday, Jan. 24, from 5 to 7 p.m. and runs through May 24.
“My life is an experiment, and my paintings a journal of my daily life. In Spirit my work is a combination of surrealism and figurative expressionism, through those core principles, honest introspection, and an improvisational working process, I paint the images that tug at my subconscious, Each finished painting adds a small part to the whole, and slowly I attempt make sense of the world to myself. Through endless painting, I let these bits and pieces of myself grind and churn against each other, swaying in and out off focus until the message becomes visible. I then can step back and observe myself and those moments of my internal life. This simple reason is why I started painting and will continue to paint for the rest of my life”
