McARTHUR BINION: The way Binion creates art is less like painting and almost has more to do with performance (…).,
Birth of Colored, Seven, 2014.
About:
McArthur’s process stands out above other artists as his unique portrait requires painstaking work using photo-copied documents that include his birth certificate and address book from the 1970s. This distinctly unique type of self portrait is achieved using shredded documents as collage materials that are arranged in crosshatched tiles and placed in a grid on wooden panel. The style this creates is expressively textured. To compose this work McArthur goes beyond process art, and transitions into labor. The marks on these pieces incorporate crayon on panel and laser print collage. When working with crayon, he presses the material down until it is completely used up. He applies this technique with each of his materials which include crayon, oil stick, and ink on wood.
MAB, 1971, VIII, 2015.
If you were to meet McArthur, you would see firsthand the clear momentum he has as an artist. It was his work ethic and drive that made an impression on me as a student. Not only was his work physical to the point where it resembles manual labor, but Binion himself would explicitly encourage students to put art before all other aspects of life. On numerous accounts he has told me, “Artists cannot have a job, a personal life and their art. They can only have two of the three, so if you need to support yourself at another job you cannot have a social life.” He would further illustrate this with comments on his own life, “Art comes before your relationships, if you want to be a successful artists let your relationships suffer before your work.” Binion also instructs artists to put art-making before art theory, written statements and self promotion tactics. He firmly believes an outstanding body of work speaks for itself, and if you aren’t good with words others will write them for you.
DNA, Black Painting II, 2015.
Stuttering Standing, Still, 2013.
McArthur’s personal history strongly influences the work he creates. Binion’s childhood goes beyond a rural upbringing. As a young boy he picked cotton in Mississippi before moving to Detroit. McArthur describes himself now as a “Rural Modernist.” His life journey is reflected in his art work, it has a lot to do with Mississippi and the move his family took to work in the automobile industry. In one series of work he depicts things that grow in the ground that can be eaten, this includes “Digging Peanuts.” His influences range from his personal experience to modernist painters he first came to know in his early 20s. Influences include Mondrian and Wifredo Lam among others. The way Binion creates art is less like painting and almost has more to do with performance, similar to the way people regard Jackson Pollock as a painter. He is also inspired by West African Textiles, which comes out in his quilt-like modernist grids. (quotes from article of Lauren Ike in DEFINEART, November 11, 2014)
DNA Study III, 2014.