Daniel MacCarthy – Things are in the Saddle

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Galera San Soda is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Italy of Daniel MacCarthy: Things are in the saddle. Daniel MacCarthy lives and works in Wales.

‘Things are in the Saddle’ (and ride mankind) takes a broad look at a variety of contemporary phenomena, from climate change and political protest to our relationship with nature, technology and capitalism. Things, which we imagine, are there to serve us, once in the saddle, gallop us straight for the cliff edge.

MacCarthy's paintings, a new body of work composed of small and large scale canvases, take as cue an obscure 19th century poem by Ralf Waldo Emerson. In Ode Inscribed to W. H. Channing, the author describes a still youthful America becoming emasculated through its own insatiable genius for artifice. These works, which were created during the UK’s protracted and torturous exit from the European Union offer a long view of processes that gather pace and become like an unstoppable juggernaut of self destruction. In an age of fleeting imagery and digital overload the paintings resound with a strong material presence in pigment mixed with rabbit skin glue or oils on unprimed canvas.

Accepting the invite of the gallery, MacCarthy fostered his imagery through the metaphor and iconography offered by the gallery namesake: Galera, a form of ship propelled by rowing, where human effort is the primary method of propulsion. Hence, the Capstan and the Galera serve here as allegories. Whether for perpetual growth-economies, a mainstay of the post-industrial west or the algorithms that will surely shape our future.

Daniel MacCarthy
Daniel MacCarthy (1986) graduated in Contemporary History at the University of Sussex in 2008 before studying art. From 2009-2011 he attended the Royal Drawing School and finished the Turps Painting Program in 2019. The exhibition ‘Things are in the Saddle’ marks a return to subject matter he first addressed as an undergraduate student in his dissertation about man-made apocalypses. MacCarthy lives in Wales where he is currently artist-in-residence at the Sidney Nolan Trust. This is his first solo show in Italy.