John Hunt

It is the best part of twenty years since I first encountered Joe Mcgill. I should admit that I wasn't exactly full of enthusiasm when I accepted his invitation to call to his house and have a look at his work. I arrived sceptical and left gob smacked. Here was an artist, working in isolation, who owed nothing to the visual arts scene. Instead, this artist was following a path that was totally his own, a path he was pursuing with an uncompromised blend of honesty, discipline and commmitment.

That visit to Joe Mcgill is also memorable because that was when I bought my first piece by him. Contra Wedding Ring consists of a small board painted in various shades of light blue. Applied to the centre is a finger ring fashioned out of barbed wire. This, of course, is what Joe Mcgill is all about: he gives us an image, adds a title and challenges us to figure out the many strands of the totality. His emphasis may have shifted from working with found objects to painting but his mission to jump-start our thought processes remains undiminished.

The big thing with Joe Mcgill is that what you see is not always what you get. He cannot, like the wonderful Charles Brady, allow a bus ticket to remain simply a bus ticket. Instead, Joe would have to wrap that bus ticket in a whole range of notions so as to kick-start our brains into action. The painting showing two empty plinths is not just a well painted, if minimal, still life: its title, Bamiyan Buddha's, gives the piece its layers of meaning as we are prompted to ponder not just the issue of the destruction of art, but to consider the broader notion of the impermanence in Buddhism.

Joe Mcgill says that there is a political element to most of his work. True, but this is politics in the broadest sense of the word, for Joe has no fears about tackling the big universal issues.In Bowl the choice to see it as a begging bowl, a food container or funerary vessel is ours. The image, along with the title, is the trigger that encourages us to follow any number of thought processes. He encourages us to connect the micro of a single bowl with the macro of a whole number of bigger issues. What makes all this so special is that Joe doesn't tell us what he thinks: he just rises the issue and encourages us to ponder it. Bowl may well have us thinking about big issues such as world poverty, food production and the treat to indigenous cultures, but we are not allowed to dwell on any particular issue for too long. Game has references to both the reality and politics of conflict, entrenched positions and the status of the foot soldier.A Walk in the Forest prompts contemplation of the state of the environment while Bosnian Windchime (made from spent shells found in Mostar) subverts the deafening sound of gunfire with references to the gardens of suburbia.

Joe Mcgill may well set out to raise the big issues of our time yet he never loses his sense of humor. The notion of woundering whether Eve's apple was red or green (Dilema in Red-Dilema in Green) is both as cheeky and subversive as it is surreal. Guilt, A heavy stone to be lugged around day in day out, works because it is both serious in intent and hilarious as a one liner.

At the end of the day, Joe Mcgill is a hugely intelligent artist with a unique ability to engage the viewer. He does this without being patronising for to do so would be to undermine all of what he stands for. Joe Mcgill desperately needs to keep the viewer 'on side' for the simple reason that it is our participation in the process that ultimately gives these works their totality of purpose.

It has been a privilege to see Joe Mcgill's word develop over the last twenty years, the next twenty are not to be missed.