A new exhibition at MonOrchid’s Bokeh Gallery is showing art exploring the human body and the effects of aging through clay and mixed-media sculptures created by Constance McBride.
“A Show of Hands” will open on First Friday, reflecting nature and the body.
Clay is the medium of choice in McBride’s exhibit because of the way it highlights the fine details of what she is trying to portray. McBride said a two-dimensional art form wouldn’t have translated what she was trying to say in the same way.
“Hands and feet are some of the hardest body parts to portray, and I chose to focus on hands,” McBride said. “You use your hands for everything: talking, expressing, building. I hand-build my sculptures. I engage with the material.”
Nicole Royse, the curator of Shade Projects at MonOrchid, said she chose to showcase McBride’s work partly due to the feeling of connectivity it brings, as it emphasizes the imperfections in her art.
“McBride has found a true connection with sculpture,” Royse said. “She creates work that immediately exudes a feeling of tranquility blended with a sense of unsettlement, utilizing dry surface treatments and her sculpting method to create contorted forms rather than images of perfection.”
While the art does display the effects of getting older, McBride says it is meant to hold a deeper significance. A long life comes with a countless number of stories, and it isn’t so much the story that she is interested in, McBride says on her website, but the fact that there was a “completion of live well-lived.”
McBride’s personal life is reflected in her art’s emphasis on women aging. McBride said much of the art is inspired by her own experiences of getting older as well as watching her grandmother and mother age. Her grandmother, born in 1900, used her hands to sew and crochet while her mother was drawn to nature and preferred to make bird calls with her hands. The exhibit features ceramic birds incorporated with wire and steel as a nod to her mother and what the birds symbolize: life and death as well as the “calm between the two.”
Many will try anything to stay looking and seeming younger; however, McBride finds beauty in age and emphasizes that through her art.
“There’s an obsession with youth,” McBride said. “People have been search for a Fountain of Youth for a long time, but I believe it’s a privilege to age.”
McBride’s previous work has been shown in other galleries downtown, but the central themes of the human body and nature have been consistent in her work.
“As a curator who has worked with Connie in the past, I’m impressed by her devotion to her craft,” said Robrt Pela, curator of R. Pela Contemporary Art. “She really knows how to market her exhibitions. As someone who admires an artist who keeps her work fresh and new, I’m always interested in what Connie’s up to next.”
“A Show of Hands” will be featured in the Bokeh Gallery from Dec. 2 to Dec. 26. The Closing Reception will take place on Dec. 16 and will feature a discussion with McBride and Royse.
Contact the reporter at ntower@asu.edu.
