Digging deep into the fertile thematic ground of anatomy and somatic memory, Mary Lacy's most recent mixed media mosaics are an intimate exploration of a universal lived experience: the dichotomous wonders and limitations of the human body.
Lacy breaks down, traces, and realigns the networks of muscle groups, bones, organs, and connective tissues that make up the physical body across a series of exploratory drawings and ceramic and cement mosaics. Probing the liminal spaces where the emotional and the corporeal collide, she reaches for beauty. Superimposing memory, pleasure, possibility, and pain on these anatomical structures, the works in this exhibition signal a personal shift in the artist's relationship to her own body and its seemingly inexplicable peculiarities. Surrendering to the physicality of her chosen medium, 'Anatomy Of' is where art and health converged over a pelvis.
“Beauty beckons freedom, approaches it, tastes and remembers it, reaching for freedom with tendrils asymmetric and awake.”
- Bahar Orang
‘Where Things Touch:
A Meditation on Beauty’
“Anatomy of a Wedding Dress”
Collected beads, fabric, and thread on canvas
Framed in Maple: 49” x 66” x 2.5”
Dignity C2
20” x 16” x 1”
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar, and cement.
The Grind (Upper Jaw)
36” x 28.5” x 2”
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar, and cement in a hand made cherry wood frame.
Anatomical Heart (alt: The Swift River)
50” x 40” x 5”
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar, and cement in a cherry wood frame.
Relief (Intestines)
27.25” x 21” x 2”
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar, and cement in a hand made cherry wood frame.
Self Portrait
19” x 14.5” x 2”
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar, and cement in a hand made cherry wood frame.
A Knot (Elbow)
33.25” x 25.25” x 2”
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar, and cement in a hand made cherry wood frame.
Anatomy of A Fortress (Low Back)
22” x 22” x 2”
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar and cement in a hand made cherry wood frame.
Dignity L4
20” x 16” x 2”
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar and cement.
The Gall
12” x 11.5” x 2”
Stomach and Gallbladder
Collected ceramics, dishware, mortar, and cement in a hand made cherry wood frame.
‘About the Dishes’
This show introduced me to my elbow, how
it’s made up of different bones
that twist together with my wrist, how
I learned to feel
my pelvis, a counterweight to
my neck, my metal neck, how I got to know
my ribcage, studied, how it
takes up space.
Dishes exists because my nervous system
has all the power.
Care, on behalf of this power, how:
This show demands distance.
This show reorients.
This show is not for you.
This show is for my mom.
This show is for her lap.
This show is for the dishes. Their
patterns, their colors, their textures. Their
knife lines that scar the center.
This show survived.
My iconic toes, my elastic bones, my
kitchen pirouettes, this show has fun.
My smash that sounds like church,
this show is sharp.
No eager apology, no feigned modesty, Dishes is not polite.
Dishes is not innocent. Dishes
denies me my innocence. Denies
us innocence as feminine. And
innocence as self-worth.
Dishes is about the breaking
of ourselves.
-Mary Lacy
‘DISHES’ Exhibition Book
$50 | Softcover | 10” H x 8” W | 118 pages
Featuring long-form essays and poems written by the artist and those closest to her, this book dives into the process and themes explored in Mary Lacy’s solo exhibition, ‘DISHES.’
