Simchowitz currently presents “When There’s Nothing Left,” the second solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Shaina McCoy (b. 1993, Minneapolis MN), at Hill House in Pasadena, California. This new body of work explores McCoy’s family history through archival photographs, celebrating both monumental moments and the beauty of everyday life. The series shows figures with featureless faces engaged in embraces, conveying a universal human experience that invites viewers to see themselves in these moments. McCoy’s work emphasizes the significance of cherishing our connections and honoring the time spent with loved ones. In this video Shaina McCoy guides us through the exhibition and talks about her work.
Shaina McCoy: When There’s Nothing Left / Simchowitz Hill House, Pasadena. October 20, 2024.
Shaina McCoy: When There’s Nothing Left / Simchowitz Hill House, Pasadena. October 20, 2024.
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CreativityTranscript
00:0030 minutes.
00:01I have no idea.
00:04We had to pay $7.00 each.
00:06I'll be right back.
00:08I'm gonna call you.
00:09Bye.
00:10See you.
00:11Bye.
00:13See you.
00:14Bye.
00:15Bye.
00:16See you.
00:17Bye.
00:18Bye.
00:19Bye.
00:20Bye.
00:21Bye.
00:22Bye.
00:23I'll be right back.
00:24I'll be right back.
00:25I know you're in there, there it is, that's it, that's it.
00:54Hello, my name is Shana McCoy and you're here at my solo exhibition at the St. Quid's Hillhouse
00:58Gallery out in Pasadena, California.
01:02And I have decided to share these works.
01:06They are all together in a series titled When There's Nothing Left, which I want the viewer
01:12to finish and feel like we are all we have as family, as community and friends.
01:19So I decided to depict a lot of moments and a lot of still experiences between family
01:24and friends where they're embracing one another.
01:28Here you'll see a painting of my mother and myself when I was little.
01:32I'm the first daughter and the oldest.
01:35And throughout the exhibition, you also see more paintings of my mom and I.
01:41So we also have these little works, which I did start out making when I first started
01:47painting.
01:48They were at a scale of five inches by seven inches.
01:52And I did them for a benefit in Minneapolis for the houseless community.
01:56So in high school, we did 30 paintings and all of those went to a benefit called Art
02:02for Shelter.
02:04And we were able to provide housing and food for the houseless community in the Twin Cities.
02:10So that's why I keep doing them because they always remind me of home and to continue to
02:15do something not only for myself, but for other people.
02:18I'm a big giver and a big lover.
02:20So I always think about other people and through these works, you'll see that this is a painting
02:27of my grandpa and I.
02:29He's also here today from Chicago.
02:32This is a painting of my mom and my cousin Kaylee and my grandmother who recently passed
02:39in May with my cousin who's also named after her, Anita.
02:45Two friends at a wedding, I've started to take more photographs as my own references
02:50to start painting from to extend the archive that we have for my grandpa.
02:56He is my main inspiration.
02:58I go to a lot of his photographs as references for the pieces and I think about 80 to 90%
03:04of my paintings are based after his work.
03:07He's here today, so it's really fun to see him look at the work and enjoy it and take
03:12it in and recognize that this is also his work as well.
03:16So we have a lifelong collaboration and that's so beautiful to me and I'm so lucky to be
03:21able to do that because his love for my family also became my love for my family and how
03:26he sees the world is how I began to see it as well.
03:30So we kind of like work back and forth and I enjoy that a lot.
03:35And we have my friend and her brother, my friend and her little brother's friend.
03:43Sometimes I paint other people's family as a decision to step outside and recognize another
03:49moment or experience that another person was having.
03:53Here we have more paintings of friends.
03:57This is myself and my friend Brianna and my grandma and I at my last solo exhibition which
04:04was here in Los Angeles in 2022.
04:08I needed to have this here because it was an important part of my grieving process.
04:14As my grandma can't be here today, I made sure that she was still with us and I think
04:19that's something very special because our energy is very much here and I'm very thankful
04:24for her.
04:26This is my cousin and myself, Tanisha.
04:33And then I have this large painting piece here which is my great-grandmother and my
04:38little brother.
04:39My great-grandmother, she is not really, she doesn't like getting on planes so we send
04:45her lots of pictures and videos.
04:47This is a photograph that I've taken of them recently.
04:51They're from Minnesota so you always see the jerseys of Vikings, they're big Vikings
04:55fans.
04:56And I thought this was such a very, very sweet experience to watch them and how they bond.
05:04She I believe is 84 and he's 15 and just to see them have conversations back and forth
05:09and how he's so curious about her and she just, you know, spends time with him telling
05:14him stories.
05:15I think that's something that I enjoy.
05:17I've been enjoying seeing, or I can't talk anymore, excuse me, I have been enjoying watching
05:23them grow together.
05:28And then this is my cousin D and Z at their wedding.
05:35They are twins if you can't already tell.
05:39I thought that moment was very sweet.
05:41We also bond over food when we break bread with each other and we bond over moments of
05:46doing each other's hair or just holding each other simply like this photo you see here
05:51of my grandpa holding my aunt.
05:55This is the first painting that I started for this whole series and I just admire how
05:59he holds us and also photographs everything throughout our livelihoods.
06:10So what's very personal and why did you leave the faces blank?
06:19It's a happy mistake.
06:20So I went to arts high school in Minnesota, it's called Perpich Center for Arts Education
06:24and I wanted to execute badly to paint real faces and to paint exactly what was on the
06:32reference photo and I couldn't do that.
06:34We thought that you were worthy of praise as a student, you know, in your 12th grade
06:38year of high school, that if you could paint exactly what was on that photograph that
06:43you could do anything and that you were a cool kid because you could paint that thing
06:48and I just couldn't and I tried and I tried and I was new to the material, to oil paint.
06:54I couldn't afford it coming from my lower middle class background.
06:58I've never used oil paint before my 12th grade year in high school and we had a project where
07:03we had to knock out 30 paintings and pick our subject matter and so we had so much
07:08time to do so and I decided to pick up my grandfather's photographs from my mother's
07:13home and take them back to school and just sit there and paint, paint, paint and I said
07:19I'm just going to do away with the faces, I don't know how to do them and I thought
07:23that was very much like, I didn't think it was art.
07:26I wasn't confident in it and that made me so frustrated as a youth in the arts being
07:30surrounded by so many other talented individuals that I couldn't do that thing and I had a
07:36teacher who came to our class and she was like, she was amazing, her name was Megan
07:43Rye and she's also a painter and she recognized that I was really putting in these efforts
07:48to attempt something and she's like you don't need to put facial features on it for it to
07:54be art, to be considered art and I thought wow, I'm just sitting here crying in class
08:00like oh my gosh, she thinks it's art and she thinks it's beautiful and she was like
08:05you have to continue to do this, it's uniquely you and I think there's something there and
08:11so since 2012 I've been painting without facial features, that's my happy mistake,
08:18just carrying it on my back, you know, I've never felt the need to paint faces because
08:23so many other artists do that thing and here I am just putting in the emotions of it through
08:29the brush strokes and filling in the facial features with the cheeks and the impressions
08:35of the forehead and the chin and the ear structure and how the hair lays and the patternation
08:41so it's more of a feeling than anything.
08:44Yeah, happy coincidence because it's perfect, yeah.
08:48It's great.
08:50And how did you come to, yeah, you've mentioned a little bit the art school but have you always
08:53this urge to be an artist?
08:56Yes, I've always been a creative growing up, my family always knew to give me creative
09:02birthday gifts so I had my hands on everything from beads to weaving to painting and drawing
09:09and pastels and they just let me have everything and I'm so thankful that they nourished that
09:16creative spirit that I had growing up because they could have told me hey, you have to,
09:20you know, think about other things and they decided that's okay, this is her and we want
09:25to fill her cup with that so I thank my mom and my dad and the rest of my family for giving
09:31me that push and recognizing like this is my thing and to let me have that.
09:36A lot of people think that you'll be a starving artist and that it won't work out and I think
09:42being creative is cathartic, I think it's medicinal, it helps me through migraine, having
09:49lost many family members and it just feels so good to like love on each other and celebrate
09:55each other in this way, yeah.