John McEnroe

As an installation participant in the Denver Art Museum "Embrace!" exhibition opening November 14, 2009, noted Colorado artist John McEnroe is featured in a concurrent solo exhibition at Robischon Gallery. This exhibition offers innovative new works of suspended and large-scale sculpture from two, distinctive and ongoing bodies of work. In one sculptural series, in tandem with his "Embrace!" installation, McEnroe further explores his range of free-hanging organic forms made from resin-encased, nylon prosthetic stockings. In the artist's museum installation entitled The Bathers, three dozen black or white minimal, attenuated forms are attached to the ceiling of the architecturally dynamic museum space. Simultaneously, his Robischon Gallery exhibition features similarly suspended sculptures made with the same process only each new piece is entwined and looped onto itself into seductive, suggestive droops and cascades.

In the second series presented, McEnroe creates large-scale assemblage sculpture by melting, stretching and fusing children's toys, play structures and other plastic objects. By utilizing such sculptural components, like a Stars Wars mask or an outdoor playhouse purchased from a defunct pre- school, the artist's contextualized compositions shape-shift and re-purpose the ever-present and largely disposable detritus of every day lives. Literally playful with a tactile quality, the work's expansive range is both sophisticated and formally substantial.

The nature of John McEnroe's layered process conveys meaning while remaining true to the artist's formal concerns as a sculptor. He addresses compelling issues of transience and permanence as he allows both the process and his chosen materials to dictate each sculpture's formal result. By seeing the familiar in unexpected ways, John McEnroe's commitment in the studio to discover new combinations of process, material and meaning continues to push sculptural boundaries.

John McEnroe has a B.F.A. from Kansas University and an M.F.A. from Ohio State University. Frequently exhibited at museums and galleries, he has been awarded several high-profile public art commissions in Denver including, most notably, National Velvet at the Highlands pedestrian bridge, Model State: A Local Cosmology at the Colorado Convention Center and Fool's Gold as part of the RTD Light Rail Station Project that incorporated art into the light rail stops throughout the Denver metro area. John McEnroe is included in the Denver Art Museum's permanent collection and was prominently featured the MCA Denver's "Decades of Influence" exhibition.