A set of screwdrivers. A padlock. A trio of vices. These are some of the everyday objects that get a new life in paintings by artist Mike McSorley, whose work is on display this month at the Mezzanine Gallery in Wilmington.
McSorley has painted landscapes, portraits, and in his current work still lifes of the objects we use everyday. His focus on tools began with a wood shop he had when he lived in Pittsburgh. When he moved to Washington DC, he began painting some of the tools he kept from that workshop, experimenting with light sources to bring out their colors.
“I just liked hatchets and hammers and drills and just all the stuff in the wood shop,” he says.
McSorley’s paintings are in part a tribute to the thought and craftsmanship by often-anonymous designers who created these everyday, useful objects.
“Somebody put a lot of time and thought into it,” he says. “I’m trying to capture that creativity that they used.”
He says he hopes that his work will help viewers appreciate that creativity and that beauty can be found anywhere if you look for it.
“There's beauty all around us, objects that are interesting,” McSorley says. “And maybe it's a way to get involved in the present moment is to look at the things that are around us.”
McSorley’s exhibition, “Out of the Ordinary,” is on display at the Delaware Division of the Arts’ Mezzanine Gallery at the Carvel State Office Building in Wilmington. The show closes on April 24. Admission is free.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
