"Remains"
Cathy McClure
Cathy McClure
Opening: November 19, 2009
Moss New York
150 Greene Street
New York, NY
a metamorphosis of thirteen mechanically articulated robotic works in cast bronze. presented in association with Edelman Arts.
"Hands wielding scissors, McClure massacres the motor-driven robotic plush toys, eviscerating them through a Geppetto-like taxidermy until she gets down, as she says, “into the guts of the piece”. Skinning the ‘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 kitties and elephants and doggies and roosters delightfully life-like movement and sound.
Disassembling the carcasses and then re-casting the limbs and armatures in the most archetypical fine art medium, bronze, McClure’s Frankensteinian re-assembly of the new ‘parts’ involves craft-like re-fittings and manipulations as well as re-installation of the original circuit-boards, batteries, gears, and voice-boxes.
The reincarnations? Through metamorphosis, they seem to have aged, even wizened. Their now-hollow voices and awkward, geriatric movements – the result of their evolved, hardened and precious new bronze armatures - remove them from the toy chest where they were raised and catapult them into the adult environments of salon, library, museum. Now, part historical / figural sculpture, part archaeological artefact, they become each a Trojan Horse, the cavity filled with a Pandora’s Box of memories." -Murray Moss
Cathy McClure received her BFA from Texas Technological University in 1995 and her MFA from the University of Washington in 1997. The Seattle Art Museum selected her from a pool of 426 applicants to receive the 19th Annual Betty Bowen Memorial Award in 1997; the same year she received her MFA degree. She has exhibited at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Milton Hershey School Museum.
Moss New York
150 Greene Street
New York, NY
a metamorphosis of thirteen mechanically articulated robotic works in cast bronze. presented in association with Edelman Arts.
"Hands wielding scissors, McClure massacres the motor-driven robotic plush toys, eviscerating them through a Geppetto-like taxidermy until she gets down, as she says, “into the guts of the piece”. Skinning the ‘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 kitties and elephants and doggies and roosters delightfully life-like movement and sound.
Disassembling the carcasses and then re-casting the limbs and armatures in the most archetypical fine art medium, bronze, McClure’s Frankensteinian re-assembly of the new ‘parts’ involves craft-like re-fittings and manipulations as well as re-installation of the original circuit-boards, batteries, gears, and voice-boxes.
The reincarnations? Through metamorphosis, they seem to have aged, even wizened. Their now-hollow voices and awkward, geriatric movements – the result of their evolved, hardened and precious new bronze armatures - remove them from the toy chest where they were raised and catapult them into the adult environments of salon, library, museum. Now, part historical / figural sculpture, part archaeological artefact, they become each a Trojan Horse, the cavity filled with a Pandora’s Box of memories." -Murray Moss
Cathy McClure received her BFA from Texas Technological University in 1995 and her MFA from the University of Washington in 1997. The Seattle Art Museum selected her from a pool of 426 applicants to receive the 19th Annual Betty Bowen Memorial Award in 1997; the same year she received her MFA degree. She has exhibited at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Milton Hershey School Museum.
