Kevin McNamee-Tweed, Ceramic Paintings
Essays by Andrew Berardini and John Dilg
Interview with the artist by Lauren Moya Ford
Los Angeles, 2020
10 x 11 ½ inches, cloth 248 pages, 123 full-color reproductions
ISBN: 978-0-9767630-3-1
Steve Turner announces the publication of a monograph on the ceramic paintings of Kevin McNamee-Tweed. The book is lavishly-illustrated throughout and includes a generous section of color plates.
For more information about the artist, click here.
Kevin McNamee-Tweed was born in a graduate dorm room at Stanford University in 1984. The midwife present informed his parents that he did not have kidneys and would soon die. At the hospital shortly after, it was found that he had two kidneys and would live.
The family moved to Boston and then Miami before settling in Carrboro, North Carolina, a small town near Chapel Hill. Upon graduation from high school in 2003, McNamee-Tweed moved to New York City to attend NYU. Time at NYU’S La Pietra campus in Florence, Italy marked a shift in McNamee-Tweed’s academic trajectory when he changed majors from Philosophy to Studio Art. This transition may be linked, in part, to the time he spent employed at an art supply store on Bond Street in Manhattan despite having no knowledge of art materials or techniques.
As an art student, McNamee-Tweed showed interest primarily in writing and conceptual work. In 2008 he graduated from NYU with a BFA and purchased a $400 white 1982 Volvo with a blue interior. The car took him from Patterson, New Jersey, where he bought it, through all the Southern states and most of the Western ones. He got a dog named Bartleby in Gadsden, Alabama.
In 2009 he decided not to move back to New York to start a bookshop with his friend Henry Winn, who now owns Molasses Books. Instead, he began living in Austin, Texas by some coincidence and remained there for seven years. As his studio practice developed, he participated with increasing frequency in the artist-run scene in East Austin. As these galleries and project spaces grew, McNamee-Tweed took on many roles, including working with a non-profit arts organization, Big Medium, where he soon became Chief Curator. He organized dozens of exhibitions and projects while nourishing his own studio practice. His exhibitions and projects in Texas quickly lead to opportunities, awards, residencies, books and gallery exhibitions nationally and internationally. In 2017 he moved to Iowa City to earn an MFA from the University of Iowa, where he began exploring ceramics.