Patrick McDonnell has long since established himself as one of the top cartoonists and illustrators working today. In addition to his award-winning comic strip Mutts, McDonnell’s illustrations have been featured in The New York Times, Parents Magazine, and Time magazine. He has authored and published numerous children’s books (securing a Caldecott Honor award in 2012 for Me…Jane), won a number of National Cartoonists Society Awards, and often been put forward as the heir apparent to Charles Schulz.
What’s been less well established (and what Side Effects: Paintings by Patrick McDonnell 2016-2021 presents in abundance) is McDonnell’s prowess as a painter. Through a selection of over 50 canvases, Side Effects allows McDonnell to flex his painterly muscle and show that his creativity and humor extend well beyond the printed page.
In an accompanying statement to the exhibition, McDonnell describes his appreciation for the Abstract Expressionists Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Cy Twombly. Not surprisingly, the works themselves mine this exact territory; utilizing all the broad strokes, unwieldy splatters, and bold color fields of those mid-century masters. With a deftness that makes it all seem perfectly natural, McDonnell then populates these rich abstractions with a veritable “who’s who” of 20th-century cartoon characters. In so doing, he draws fascinating connections between the spontaneous, gestural marks of abstract painting and the gestural economy of the cartoonist’s line.
While McDonnell’s bona fides as a student of cartoons are without question, I’d argue here that his knowledge of 20th-century painting is at least as strong. One doesn’t toss in the kind of skull rendered in Lemonade or the style of sun pictured in Leaping Lizards without being familiar with Basquiat. Similarly, Panels is unlikely to come fully-formed from an artist unfamiliar with Robert Motherwell’s Elegies to the Spanish Republic series. Like references abound. Nods to Neo-Expressionism, Pop Art, Cubism, and Color field paintings are plentiful. The venerable Ben Day dots even make an appearance.
All of this reaches “peak reference” in the form of a large red canvas titled And None Shall Survive. Dramatically lit and hung with the kind of solitary reverence normally afforded the hyper-somber works of Mark Rothko, there’s even a bench where viewers might be allowed ample time to contemplate the meaning of it all! And None Shall Survive presents a mash-up of 1960s high and low culture that cagily sneaks Marvel Comics dramatics into the austere picture planes favored by Mark Rothko and Clifford Still.
Which isn’t to say Side Effects is purely an academic exercise. Nor is it simply a lesson in art (or cartoon) history. What makes Side Effects so successful is the earnestness that McDonnell brings to the work. He clearly loves the business of rendering cartoons. He also clearly loves the business of applying paint to canvas, of pushing it around, of scraping it off, of just seeing what it does. It’s that sense of exploration and the love of the process that resonates in this collection of paintings. The artist’s approach invites viewers to be part of the work. Like Nancy and Sluggo (who appear frequently in McDonnell’s paintings), we are both observers and participants.
The works included in Side Effects were created during a time that was particularly fraught. That unease and that uncertainty come through in many of the paintings on display, but so too does hope. Flowers bloom in unexpected places. Those lost at sea are rescued. The sun shines on Annie and Sandy.
McDonnell shares that “these paintings are about coping and persevering, how everything is connected and how art (and humor) heals.” If that’s the side effect that McDonnell was hoping for, we’ll take all we can get.
Side Effects: Paintings by Patrick McDonnell 2016-2021 is on view through October 3 at The Ohio State University Urban Arts Space, 50 W. Town St., Suite 130. The Side Effects exhibition is co-sponsored by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Click here for more information.
All photos of artwork by Jeff Regensburger