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Thirty-nine-year-old multimedia artist Cyrus McCray may be known to some as the man behind a 2013 performance piece that found him wandering Canyon Road clad in black and wearing a skull mask broadcasting, “This is anything but beautiful.” Take that, widely accepted art street! A graduate of Cal Arts with a degree in fine art, McCray’s the kind of creator who can back up his work with a healthy dose of philosophical reasoning and no small amount of intellect. Point blank, he rules, and his new show of painting, segmented wooden boxes, photography and sculpture, Artifact or Artifice, will be up at Iconik Coffee Roasters (1600 Lena St., 428-0996) from Jan. 14 to Feb. 14. You want to see this show, we promise.
What's your statement, assuming there is one?
Part of it is using the concept of generative systems, like rolling dice, to create the pieces, and part of it is to think more of what is behind the art; to create objects that are appealing in form—because people want beauty—but also to interact and engage with people who maybe have some kind of an arts education. The point is to showcase this transition I've been in. I exist in this gray area between structuralism and post-structuralism.
So then you're more interested in the art show as an active experience?
Absolutely. It's supposed to be intellectual as well as sensory. I think real conceptual art is about engagement. Look at abstract work and how it is so subjective and hard to engage with the people who see it. The idea, of my sculptural objects, at least, is to create this feeling of form factor but also to say the object might not be quite as important as the experience. Ask people why they paint or draw or make music, and most of the time, even they don't know the answer themselves or give you some regurgitated answer they've heard elsewhere. I create to engage and to inspire and to be inspired.
Seems like it's not very mainstream Santa Fe, does it?
Most art here is driven by aesthetics, and there is very limited opportunity for people like myself. A lot of artists have to paint themselves into these boxes. I want to engage in meaningful practices and to work in these different mediums, because each medium has its own inherent message that it can get across.
A previous version of this story contained incorrect dates.
Santa Fe Reporter