Macyn Bolt

Tightrope (Abstract painting)

2017

Macyn Bolt is an American abstract painter. Using a visual language informed by geometric abstraction, he creates artworks that examine how color and form create shifts in visual perception. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and upstate Pennsylvania. Bolt graduated with a BFA in 1979 from Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, MI, and earned his Masters of Fine Arts from Syracuse University in 1981. Macyn Bolt has exhibited in multiple solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States. Work by Macyn Bolt is included in many corporate and institutional collections, including those of the Newark Museum, Grand Rapids Art Museum, the Blanton Museum of Art, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Progressive Companies, the Janet Turner Print Museum, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and TIAA-CREF. Bolt works with acrylic paint on a variety of surfaces including canvas, wood panel, vinyl and paper. Using scrapers and palette knives, he builds up layers of paint, creating surfaces that seem both polished and hand made. He often strives to achieve heightened areas of contrast, exploring relationships between the painterly and the flat, the loose and the opaque. That contrast is further explored in relationships between colors. His process mirrors the balance he seeks between boldness and delicacy in his compositions. Scale is also an important aspect of his work. His smaller works, which start around 16 x 15 inches, create opportunities for intimate viewer interactions. His larger works, which can range up to 84 x 180 inches, encompass viewers in a contemplative aesthetic space. The differences in size result in a range of perceptual experiences that is integral to the work.