“…McFarlane, while drawing on his acquaintance with African-American folk music traditions, invites a palette comparison to Henri Matisse as he uses the color blue with the sort of genius that the French master employs with red. This observation reminds us that McFarlane is very much a colorist often with a hint of the Fauvism (Parallel Clouds of Beauty, from Like the Weather Series, 2012).”
– Barry Gaither Director of the Museum of the National Center of African Artists, Boston
“Beginning with Like theWeather Series, McFarlane investigates another direction toward abstraction. In Rain in Beijing, 2015, he creates the painting as a plane of overlapping bars with differing color values and tonal variations. The impression of the work is graphic, and in the absence of concrete images, the viewer is engaged through the sense of surface, texture, brightness and light. In, for example, Rain in Beijing, 2015, the surface shimmers, recalling the reflectivity of falling or running water. Such formalistic exuberance for value and tone are exceedingly important to the success of the several works in the Weather Series including Like the Weather at Night, I & II, 2015. All of these paintings contrast sharply with more place-specific themes such as Beijing Hutong with Sunlight executed in the same period.”
– Barry Gaither Director of the Museum of the National Center of African Artists, Boston