Friday Focus: Robert McNally
Robert McNally, born 1982, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. Lives and works in Leicestershire, UK. Rob's process is highly labour-intensive and solitary. Dedication to the meticulous and physical endeavour of drawing is central to his ethos and expression. Drawing upon the childhood influences of video games and science fiction, the work treads a path on the borderline between digital and analogue. He explores an interior landscape of loneliness/belonging, isolation through technology, and the malleability of context and history in the post-internet world.
Can you tell me about your practice? How do you get started on a piece of work?
Who or what are your biggest influences?
How do you conceive and construct the narratives within your works? Where does the subject matter come from?
There is an autonomous part of my mind which is constantly given over to work, and when I came to understand how that operates, I stopped actively directing myself in any particular direction subject-wise, and began to rely more on instinct and intuition. I tend to build on the previous piece of work, and much of the information is already there thematically in my own history and the visual language I have built up over the years, so I have a lot of instant references and emotions to draw upon. I am at ease assimilating information, selecting what I need, and recontextualising it visually within my own language, without feeling a burden to explain or analyse it for the benefit of others. The main thing is that I feel comfortable enough with my visual language to be able to trust my creative decisions, and I enjoy that familiar process and the mystery of it.
The material is paramount. There are 2 distinct components to my work, the first deals with the visual content, and the second is philosophical. This second part is governed by a personal set of existential ideas to do with my principals, morality, and how I feel about what I value vs. certain perceived societal values / Art-world values. I feel like this element IS my artwork; the conspicuous dedication to process / investment of time. When you make a decision to spend years working on something without any assurances of the outcome, both visually and financially, it is a major leap of faith, so you'd better know why you are doing it. I chose to commit to paper and graphite solely for a period of my career because it is difficult, and in my opinion devalued and misunderstood, and because I could see that there was so much room to innovate if placed at the forefront of practice. One of the areas I explore in my work is the point of tension between analogue and digital. My lifetime spans an era where I have had the grandstand view of the implementation of the internet, and it is a wonderful challenge to express the effects of digital transition in fully analogue terms. There will always be a need to express complex, metaphysical and abstract ideas through tangible/relatable common instruments and materials, there is an enduring fascination in the alchemy of that.
What I need the most is solitude and autonomy, and for practical reasons I need smooth, flat walls over a certain height.
Finally, is there anything new coming up that you would like to tell us about?
I have 2 shows in the pipeline, no fixed dates. When I was in my early 20's I decided to commit myself to 20 years of drawing, and then when I reached 40, or I felt as though I had hit certain targets, I would start to explore alternative artforms, and that's what I have begun to do.