The five wall works presented in The Ritual of the Mask are intimate paintings made of paper, fiberglass and wood. McGhee refers to these shaped artworks as "crushed paintings." Transgressing the constraints of traditionally stretched canvases, these crushed paintings emerge as symbolic forms. The sixth and final object in the exhibition is an African mask from the artist's personal collection of artifacts. The influence of the African mask is undeniable when viewing McGhee1 s work. Titles such as The Ritual of the Mask, Blue Face, and Sun Down Mask make us consider what kind of rituals or ceremonies the artist finds sacred in his own studio practice. To the left of the mask and pedestal is Yellow Dance, 2005, the first crushed painting McGhee made by manipulating papers found around his studio with layers of acrylic paints. The artworks in this presentation span the four year period of 2005 - 2009, which laid the groundwork of McGhee1 s ongoing and expanding series of sculptural paintings.

Allie McGhee (b.1941) is a native Detroiter who has committed his five-decade career to exploring abstract painting through the lens of cultural and scientific analyses. His work is collected by many public institutions including the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Saint Louis Art Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York), Kohler Arts Center (Wisconsin), the James Lewis Museum at Morgan State University (Maryland) and Henry Ford Hospital (Michigan). In October 2021, the Cranbrook Art Museum will present a retrospective exhibition of McGhee's long career living and working as a painter.