Drawing
on memory and desire, the Houston artist David McGee maps the emotional and
physical territories that surround him. In 1994 McGee embarked on a series he
titled Wasteland, addressing the
inevitable alienation of love in the time of AIDS. Untitled, from this series, presents the tools of the artist’s
trade and markers of his identity—paintbrushes, sperm, and shoes—against a
background of tar black and acrid yellow.

McGee
has commented, “I am primarily a painter and, as such, I have always tried to
convey a private moment in the Landscape of the Soul—its passions, torments,
and fears. I have tried to do this not by painterly decisions or with the
process of mind, but through the process of feeling. I seek to somehow
transcend any physical boundaries that stifle true feelings.”