Collection: FILM ART: New and Selected Paintings by Gordon McConnell at Art House Cinema & Pub

Kirks' Grocery is proud to present the work of Gordon McConnell at Art House Cinema and Pub. The exhibition will be from January 15 - April 2026. An artist's talk will take place at Art House on Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at 7 PM.

FILM ART: New and Selected Paintings by Gordon McConnell

In 2019, Matt Blakeslee, the founder and director of Art House Cinema, invited me to introduce a film at the Babcock Theater during an event he was calling “Spaghetti Western Dinner.” Not knowing if it would be a one-off occasion, I reviewed my favorite films from that 1960s European-based film genre and did further research into the critical literature, historical scholarship and on-line, fan-based content. From the hundreds of films that were made between the mid-1960s and early 70s, I selected Italian director Sergio Leone’s second Western feature, For a Few Dollars More (Per Qualche Dollaro in Piú), 1965. The event proved popular and four more Spaghetti Western dinner/film events followed in subsequent years.

I was thrilled to see a film I’d loved as a teenager once again on the big screen and immediately began channeling some of that excitement into a series of paintings. Initially featuring Clint Eastwood, the series widened to incorporate characters, graphics and lettering from other Spaghetti Westerns and the advertising that promoted them.

Jane Waggoner Deschner and Jon Lodge gave me the opportunity to show some of this work at 4ZERO7 Gallery late in 2019. I was soon invited to exhibit at Kirks’ Grocery, where Shane de Leon and Mary Serbe have continued to champion my work. My interactions and collaborations with Art House and Kirks’ have been highlights of my life. I am happy that Art House has provided exhibition space for artists and is working with Kirks’ to organize the showings. Since my work is derived from and inspired by cinematic imagery, I feel particularly fortunate to present it in this context.

The work collected here consists of acrylic paintings on collaged supports derived from magazine advertising and museum publications. I typically laminate several layers of pages from ARTFORUM magazine to make larger sheets. Sometimes the collaged imagery and texts remain as part of the composition, other times I more thoroughly overpaint the buckled and multi-colored printed matter. I like the irregular surfaces and edges and consider the painting to be an object, not only an image.

Most of the subject matter and text tracks the film presentations I’ve made at Art House and the Babcock. There are specific citations of For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, The Big Gundown, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, One-Eyed Jacks and The Professionals. I use the Italian titles for American Westerns to trace the reciprocal, cross-Atlantic influences, and feature actor Clint Eastwood’s first Italian Western, A Fistful of Dollars, and his first Hollywood Western feature, Hang ‘Em High.

The RED WESTERN series employs cutout techniques in abstractions of animated horseback action, echoing film title work by the Italian visual effects designer Iginio Lardani. Usually combined with the innovative scores of Ennio Morricone, Lardani contributed his avant-garde, Pop art innovations to several of Sergio Leone’s Westerns and other films in the genre.

Gordon McConnell

Image:  RED WESTERN #s 25, 1, 2, 15, 27, 33, 2025, acrylic and collage on Bair Family Museum brochure and paper, 24 x 37 inches overall ($3,750)