Craig McPherson, pastels

"This selection of pastels was created over the last two decades as studies for paintings, mezzotints and as works in their own right. Many are executed on a black mezzotint ground, which because of its granular surface is well suited to grab the dry pastel. The subjects range from the early cityscapes, the series based on experimental theatre and recent work having to do with heavy industry." -- Text from artist's website (see link).

"An impressively skillful pastel artist, Mr. McPherson has produced a spectacular tour de force in that delicate medium: wrapping continuously around three walls, 18 large paper sheets bear the panoramic nocturnal view of languidly rippling water reflecting red and green city harbor lights. More than 60' long, it verges on abstraction yet produces an enveloping, cinematically lush effect." -- Ken Johnson review in the New York Times.

McPherson’s use of pastel in this new series marks his movement away from the more highly-finished representational work he has done previously in oil paint and mezzotint. ..Seemingly the most sketch-like and spontaneous of mediums, pastel has been both a challenge and an opportunity for McPherson, who has essentially re-invented the medium to suit his own ends, and in so doing, created an entirely new kind of pastel technique. ..A consummate craftsman, McPherson is not overly inclined to discuss the meaning of his work, except to observe that the better part of image-making consists of reducing and overabundance of information down to its essential elements. The mysterious intensity of these pastels is, in that sense, exactly their point." -- Justin Spring, Essay for "Craig McPherson: Pastels"

"Pastel is…spontaneous, loose, direct, a la prima, forgiving—pigment on a cave wall. You control graphite, but pastel is a dialogue; you get it going and it takes you places, unexpected places." -- C. McPherson, From "A conversation with Craig McPherson", Sarah Hall, Curator of the Frick Museum, Pittsburgh from the exhibition catalogue, "Steel: Pittsburgh Drawings by Craig McPherson".