Cathy McClure: Re-Imagineering, is currently on exhibition in the School of Art's Studio + Folio Gallery. Cathy McClure, alumna of School of Art Jewelry Design & Metalsmithing program, is an anti-disciplinary artist with a strong background in metalsmithing, design and installation.
As a multi-media artist with a strong background in metal design, McClure is seduced by the limitless potential of sterling silver, copper, bronze, and steel. Her enthusiasm for the techniques and traditions of metalwork is rivaled only by a wild preoccupation with engineering, mechanical toys and the discrepancy between the public's perception of an imagined techno-future and that future that we now inhabit. Using plush and tin toys as metaphors, she creates kinetic sculptures, installations and videos highlight the societal penchant for over-consumption and over-production.
Her latest body of work involves deconstruction and reinvention. Hands wielding scissors, she massacres discarded motor-driven robotic plush toys, eviscerating them through a Geppetto-like taxidermy until she gets down into the guts of the piece. Skinning her "Bots" to the bone, all that remains are their various articulated plastic limbs and bodily armature, which contains the preserved mechanisms that gave these once-cuddly Elmos and elephants and Mickeys and roosters their life-like movement and sound.
Cathy McClure: Re-Imagineering also includes the firth incarnation of McClure's Mickey Hardwired installation. McClure has taken an enigmatic series of animatronic unstuffed Mickey skeletons and rewired each group to their single control buttons. Beginning in synchronous motion, as the drama unfolds the functional forms of these stuffed animal inwards quickly falters. Dissent spreads as they whirr, click and ratchet further and further out of sync. As we watch the army of self-choreographed bots cluster and disperse, we begin to attribute individual personalities and relationships into these identical forms. Hovering shadows on the surrounding walls underscores the drama.
Cathy McClure: Re-Imagineering will be on exhibition in School of Art's Studio and Folio Galleries until February 6, 2022.
Landmark Arts Exhibitions and Speakers Programs are supported, in part, with a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation, Inc. of Lubbock. Additional support comes from TTU Cultural Activities Fees administered through the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts.
