About

Artist’s Statement

Greg McLemore

My most recent paintings, the Baltimore Ruins series, describes my infatuation with the crumbling but beautiful buildings of Baltimore City, and how these deteriorating structures can act as a metaphor for the human psyche.

Baltimore, a richly historic city, is riddled with abandoned buildings. Certain parts of town indeed feel post apocalyptic. I have always been fascinated by crumbling, ruinous structures—the deterioration of once beautiful things. The juxtaposition of the original buildings, usually geometric, planned and orderly, invaded by the visceral tears, gaping holes, and insidious cracks, have a profound visual and psychological weight. My first painting of ruins was inspired by a trip to an island off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan. Here I saw Gukanjima Island, a small island that once functioned as a city but was completely abandoned and left to the ravages of nature.

When I started this series, I was most interested in capturing the buildings themselves, and leaving their occupants out of it. In my last two paintings, however, I have re-introduced humans, as well as a stronger narrative element to the work. In paintings such as Baltimore Ruins VII (Gaga, Angel of Death) I have depicted a long stretch of a building which includes the now defunct “Bottom’s”, an old night club. Lying on the ground, in front of the building, is a homeless man sleeping. To the right is a street memorial, erected by the friends of someone slain on that street. Inspired by Lady Gaga’s outlandish costumes, I have made her the Angel of Death, ominously floating above the sleeping homeless man. My most recent painting, Baltimore Ruins VIII (Coiffures), is an exploration of the hallucinations and delusional thinking of a crystal meth addict and prostitute as she stands in front of an abandoned coiffure shop. It is worth mentioning that I used to live in a neighborhood where I saw these kinds of scenes frequently.

In summary, I consider my paintings Magical Realism- or Realism that is meant to go beyond the here and now. My historic sources of inspiration have been the Symbolists, Surrealists, and German Expressionists, though as an Art Professor, I am more or less inundated with art from every period and genre. I do, however, lean towards painting that has a jarring and psychologically intense effect.