By Ron Evans
Local renowned political cartoonist and painter Dan McConnell recently won an award for his powerful statement in oils, “Kiev Car In Snow.” McConnell’s piece was accepted into the annual CVG Show at Collective Visions Gallery in Bremerton. “Kiev Car” won 1st place in the 2D category of the show that features artists from all over Washington State. The painting was one of five in a series sparked by the artist’s “rage and frustration” over the Ukrainian war. Never one to shy away from heavy global politics, McConnell felt compelled to express these feelings through his art in a way that he wasn’t quite catching with his cartoons.
I chatted with McConnell about this series and about the exhibit where his painting took home 1st prize.
How did you come to be part of this show?
I follow CaFE (callforentry.org) and I saw the call for applications. I applied to a few shows and one that I got a yes from was the Bremerton show. This exhibit will be up through February 23. It was a very large show with quite a few amazing works there. Really happy to be a part of it.
Tell us what inspired you to make this painting series.
Ukraine…I was just feeling all this rage and frustration that was pent up in me over the whole thing. The more I watched the news coverage the more I felt it. I needed to make some sort of effort toward getting that out of me in a meaningful way. And I needed to use my whole body to do it.
Your whole body? Was that notion tied to feeling pent up? You needed to physically move through it?
Yeah I think so. I was doing political cartoons and I did one on the war where this little man was all alone surrounded by total destruction and loss and he’s saying “we won!” - there was nobody left but him. And I started to feel like I needed to do something bigger. Again, something that kind of took using my entire body to paint it, so I started working on these larger images - pieces showing the destruction and devastation. I couldn’t paint dead bodies or bloody streets or anything like that, so I chose to use these bombed cars as a metaphor for all the casualties and destruction of the war.
There are some interesting techniques mingling together in these works. A loose sort of realism surrounded by these splashes of paint that remind me of gonzo artist Ralph Steadman’s crazy paintings for Hunter S. Thompson.
Yeah, I wanted everything around the car to be uncontrolled. The car needed to be a controlled element but these other elements needed movement and this sort of violence to it. You get some interesting surprises like that bit of paint splatter above the car looking a bit like barbed wire.
It also invokes a certain sense of chaos to me. And it looks like blood splatter.
Yeah. There’s a lot going on there, a lot of energy.
Bad energy.
I had these five large canvases in my garage. I started by doing the splatter stuff, and staining it with coffee grounds. All sorts of stuff at that stage. It was important to me that I not be precious with it. Also, just the act of throwing all this stuff around was a way of letting some of my own rage about the war out onto the canvas. I worked on the whole series at the same time. They were at my Pybus Art Alley show recently.
I love that Art Alley is a thing. It’s such a great little urban art space, and its had some great opening turnouts.
Yeah, I was honored to be a part of it along with so many great artists that have been featured there. Starting with Robert Wilson.
So you’re known for your cartoons of course, but when did you start painting?
I started painting with watercolors in 1972. The cartoons came later in 1980 with Apple Andy. I went to Central Washington University, and then years later my son (Aaron) also went there, which is cool. The stretcher bars I used for these canvases were actually his, they were just sitting up in the attic. I didn’t gesso the canvases, so that color back there behind everything is the raw canvas. And coffee stains.
I’m looking to sell these, likely outside of Wenatchee, and I told myself when I do, I will donate 50% to some charity in Ukraine. Nothing to support any part of the war, but I’ll find something that specifically supports the innocent people, or ‘collateral damage’ as they say. That’s something that’s important to me.
I have no doubt of them selling. The large scale of these pieces add to the overall power to them.
When I got accepted into the Bremerton show I was loading up the painting to haul over the mountains, but I couldn’t fit it in. So I started asking some people I knew with bigger cars to help. But no one wanted to go over the passes in the winter.
This is why people with trucks never answer their phones.
Right. Then finally, a friend in Wenatchee said they didn’t wanna go but they’d let me borrow their Jeep to take it over to the gallery. And it’s a good thing because I was just about to give up on the idea of taking it. I even looked into shipping it there but that was a ton of money, so I was thinking maybe I’ll just sit it out. But I’m glad I made it because the painting won a prize.
A little lesson in stick-to-it-ness. It would be a shame to not have won, and winning is more impressive when looking at the exhibit on the website (cvgshow.com), this is an incredible show.
Yeah, it’s really a good quality show. Sadly, I didn’t make it to the opening because of the big snow storm. Weather permitting, I’ll make it over later this month to see it.
So, do you feel better about things having gotten this series out?
Not really. [Laughs] I mean...it was good to do something. I got something out of me in the process. And I’ll feel good about donating money from the sales. But...we have a long way to go in Ukraine. And I’m still pissed.
CVG Show runs through February 23rd.
Collective Visions Gallery is located at
331 Pacific Avenue Bremerton and is open
Wednesday - Thursday 11 am - 4 pm : Friday & Saturday 11 am - 6 pm.
The entire exhibit and awards given can be seen at CVGShow.org. C