ARTIST PROFILE

Christopher McNulty

  • b. 1968
  • Currently in Opelika, United States.
  • A dual citizen of France and the U.S., Christopher McNulty is a visual artist who creates sculptural objects, video, and works on paper.

REPRESENTATION

20,249 Days

20,249 Days

  • 2006
  • Dart holes paper on Paper
  • 42 x 42 inches

  • To create this piece, I threw darts to mark each remaining day and to explore the relationship between chance and control, presence and absence, destruction and creation.

  • 20249 days drawing
  • 20249 days detail drawing
  • 20,589 Days - thumbnail 20,534 Days - thumbnail 20,249 Days - thumbnail 20,045 Days - thumbnail

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    Days | 2006 - 2007

“Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities.” Richard Feynman, Lectures on Physics. Several years ago, I consulted an actuary to determine my life expectancy. Using the probable number of days that I had left to live as my starting point, I created works composed of over 20,000 repetitive marks in an attempt to represent the remainder of my life and comprehend my mortality. Like unconventional calendars, these drawings and sculptures both represent time spatially and function as contemporary vanitas. These works continue my earlier concerns with the vulnerability of the body, and the relationship of beauty to the imperfect and contingent. In their absurd attempt to make the invisible visible, the unknowable known, and the uncertain certain, the works also address our culture’s anxiety about the future and death.