BIO
Cathy McClure is an American artist and anti-disciplinarian. She received her BFA from Texas Tech University in 1995 then she received her MFA in 1997 from the University of Washington in Seattle. That same year, she received the Seattle Art Museum’s 19th Annual Betty Bowen Memorial Award. McClure has received multiple residencies, grants, and awards including Le Quai Fete in Paris, an Artist Trust Fellowship and recently, she was a 2018 Artist In Residence at Pilchuck Glass School and in 2021 she was an AIR at the Vashon Artist Residency. Her work is part of several public and private collections, including The Pace Collection in Dallas, the White House permanent collection and the Bard Collection in New York. She has had solo shows at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the Nassau County Museum in New York and the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington state. She has exhibited widely, including the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the Milton Hershey School Museum in Pennsylvania, the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Texas and Art Miami Basel. McClure has been represented by Myerson Nowinski in Seattle and Edelman Arts, Heidi Neuhoff and Moss in New York and Connecticut, respectively. She is represented by Traver Gallery in the Pacific Northwest. Since 2017, she has been the Artist Consultant for the expansion of the Seattle Convention Center Summit in downtown Seattle. In addition to developing the art program for the Summit, she completed a large-scale public artwork for the new building, which opened in January of 2023.
Artist Statement
As an anti-disciplinarian artist with a strong background in metal design, I am infused with boundless curiosity which propels me to explore materials, spaces and processes that push the boundaries of what art can be. My enthusiastic approach toward inventive methodologies raises questions about what is considered valuable and is accompanied by a wild preoccupation with the discrepancy between past perceptions of an imagined utopic techno-future and that future which we now inhabit. Often using toys as metaphors, my artworks highlight our societal penchant for instant gratification, over-production and habitually excessive consumption.
Bots
Hands wielding scissors, I massacre used, discarded battery-operated stuffed toys, eviscerating them through a Geppetto-like taxidermy until I get down into the guts of the piece. Skinning my Bots to the bone, all that remains are their various articulated pieces and parts, which contains the preserved mechanisms that gave these once-cuddly Elmos, elephants, Mickeys and roosters their peculiar movement and sound.
Disassembling the carcasses, I then re-cast the limbs and armatures in metal and engage in a Frankensteinian re-assembly of the new parts. What I build upon is buried deep within the cuteness. The reincarnations are wise and contemplative beasts that through metamorphosis have aged, even wizened. Reborn, my Bots wear their awkward walks with pride. Their new sterling silver and bronze bodies are unencumbered by youthful blubber and no longer yearn for your acceptance or cuddles - they are no longer concerned with pleasing you. Now, part historical/figural sculpture, part archaeological artifact, they become each a Trojan Horse, the cavity filled with a Pandora’s Box of memories.
Zoetropes
The central characters in my zoetropic installations are tiny abstract mechano-morphic effigies made of precious metals. I arrange these mathematically on motorized spinning surfaces, light them with stroboscopic lights and project large kinetic shadows in the space. A choreographed musical performance plays out. Possessed silhouettes in flickering shadow juxtapose merriment and exhilaration with apprehension and bewilderment. These kinetic compositions illuminate our social disparities and are studies in deviance and spectacle, attraction and repulsion. There is also something dreamy and cinematic in the operation which alludes to modern life characterized by escapism, frenzy and consumption. It is also my intent to mesmerize and enchant through optical illusion and sound. In the past, the future was an unfamiliar and magical place filled with possibility; my interest lies in re-introducing some of that magic.
Public Art
I’ve become increasingly interested in what happens when people gather together in crowds. I wonder if a chaotic space can become a “A Place in the Woods” and be transportive in a moment. To test that question, I collaborated with architects and lighting designers to create a lighting feature. This light and shadow, 8000 sq ft environment was inspired by the microscopic cellular structures of trees and the look of dappled light found in the forest. As you enter the space, light streams through perforated designs based on those micro cellular structures that now define a macro area. Now, rather than entering the forest, we stand at its precipice.