McGinty's Ascent Productions

My work explores the threshold where beauty and danger meet. I grew up in environments that looked charming and elegant on the surface, yet beneath them lived instability, volatility, and unspoken wounds. That early double‑vision shaped my artistic sensibility. I learned to see not only what is shown, but what is hidden.
Over time my work moved from symbolic inner landscapes to social and ecological ones. I am drawn to places where the surface is dazzling and the structure is fragile—dry wells behind lush vineyards, artists working beside a collapsing inland sea, communities living at the edge of environmental and economic precarity. In these landscapes I look for the moment when the façade cracks and the deeper truth becomes visible.
My films are not about despair; they are about witness. They show the human capacity to create meaning and resilience in spaces that have been damaged, overlooked, or exploited. Beauty in my work is not an escape from danger—it’s a way of confronting it, expanding it, and honoring what endures. I create films that reveal the fragility beneath abundance and the strength inside vulnerability.


I hold a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine, and a MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. My films and videos have screened at festivals and academic venues across the United States, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, and Russia, and are presented publicly on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Tubi, and YouTube.