This comprehensive survey exhibition traces artist David McGee’s (b. 1962, Lockhart, Louisiana) career from the early 1990s to the present, featuring nearly 100 paintings and works on paper—including rarely exhibited early work, large-scale figurative and abstract paintings, text-based works on paper, and selections from his most recent series.

 

McGee’s multifaceted practice explores the tangled narratives of art history, the mutable nature of language, and the politics of race and class. Drawing on a wide range of visual, literary, musical, and pop cultural references, his virtuosic and emotionally resonant work often brings image and text into dialogue to challenge dominant narratives and offer incisive social critiques. Over three decades, McGee has moved fluidly between figuration and abstraction, investigating systems of representation and identity with empathy, humor, and wit.

 

As the artist’s first major museum survey, David McGee: The Griot and the Nightingale presents works that have not been seen together before, revealing the formal and thematic threads that define his expansive body of work.

 

A richly-illustrated catalogue will be published in conjunction with this exhibition.