Between the
Sun and Surface
The Life and Work of Jay McCafferty
McCafferty in Point Fermin, San Pedro, Los Angeles, c. 1968.
“I am interested in what lies behind nature... I barely act as a mediator between the sun and the surface of the painting.”
—Jay McCafferty, 1979
In the early 1970s, McCafferty developed his signature “solar burn” paintings. Concentrating sunlight with a lens for long stretches of time he burned holes on paper, cardboard, canvas or other surfaces often previously painted with pigments. This method, at once meditative and performative, became the foundation of a lifelong practice.
McCafferty on a walk with Meaters, 1978.
McCafferty solar burning, c. 1972.
“Sometimes guided by a grid, other times following a more intuitive pattern, the process is slow and meditative, requiring deep focus and presence. For McCafferty, it is both a method and a performance, embedding time into the work’s surface. ”
Jay McCafferty explored multiple mediums throughout his career, including solar burns, photography, prints, and video.
View Artworks →
A drawer in the tool chest of the San Pedro studio.
McCafferty’s lifeguard crew at the beach at Hollister Ranch, CA, 1987.
McCafferty at work on video in Harbor City, Los Angeles, 1972.
McCafferty’s rooftop at his San Pedro home.
The estate is currently processing and digitizing the artist’s papers, including ephemera, historical photography, sketchbooks, and video. The archive is open to researchers by appointment.
Between (1981): Confronting It
In the early 1970s, Jay McCafferty (1948–2021) began creating controlled burn marks on paper that revealed halos of intense, glowing hues. The resulting buoyant works, rich in texture, possessed a distinct tactile quality. In 1980, Los Angeles art critic Christopher Knight enthused in Artforum that “the sensual, exuberant colors—vivid yellows, purples, oranges . . . reveal the artist to be quite happily in control of his circumstances.”² The following year McCafferty expanded his practice and challenged himself to work on an unprecedented scale and on a new surface: canvas. Between (1981) was the artist’s most ambitious work—a brightly colored, epically scaled site-specific solar burn triptych installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Between (1981), a large-scale installation on the east façade of the former Ahmanson Gallery at LACMA.
Historical Highlights
“A Burning Artistic Passion”
Los Angeles Times, article by Rhea Mahbubani,
December 20, 2012
For Jay McCafferty, a beloved childhood gift became the genesis of his artistic trademark. “My aunt gave me a stamp collection when I was a kid, which included a magnifying glass,” McCafferty, 64, said. “Wherever I went, that magnifying glass moved to the next tool drawer with me.”
An art class at graduate school took McCafferty out into the sun and prompted him to try his hand at an activity that he had enjoyed growing up. With the help of his…
"Jay McCafferty, Cirrus Gallery Ltd.”
Artforum, review by Christopher Knight,
May 1980, Vol. 18, No. 9
It is difficult to look at Jay McCafferty’s solar burn collages without conjuring up metaphors of the artist as Promethean figure. With a magnifying lens as net, McCafferty captures the sun’s rays and focuses them onto grid points on the ink-washed surfaces of layered vellum paper. The paper burns, creating erratic shapes which ultimately penetrate and expose other layers. In many of the works, charred bits of painted paper have been collaged to the top layer, yielding incredibly fragile, visually seductive surfaces….
