Irish Arts Review

Autumn 2022 Edition
Graduates 2022

Written by Michael Minnis

Upon entering Johnny McMahon's installation 'The Fog', you immediately have the sensation of being caught up in a semiotic minefield. This is an uncomfortable space to be in, where the ugliness of the virtual and material worlds butt up against each other. A painting daubed with thick paint spells out a crass internet meme, balancing on two-day-old cartons of milk. In one corner, a printed textile image of a Mark Zuckerberg avatar floats above a child's baseball bat. McMahon's installation of work has a close affinity with what the art theorist David Joselit defined some time ago as 'transitive painting' - where paintings take part and move in a network of relationships, changing and adapting in a comparable manner to the flow of digital information. While in lockdown, McMahon immersed himself in this digital space, observing the absurd humour he found in chatrooms and throwaway memes. This digital research has seeped into the materiality of his new work.

In his artist's statement, McMahon lets us know that his project title, 'The Fog', refers to a recent series of memes that incorporate the ominous phrase: 'the fog is coming'. Users are warned that this fog will descend, in the near future, upon the earth. McMahon's paintings, with their incorporation of physical and virtual cultural detritus, momentarily break this fog. In his assemblage of matter, he offers us the possibility of navigating this perceived digital threat through our embodied lived experience.

Michael Minnis is a lecturer in Fine Art, Painting, at LSAD-TUS.