Siobhan McClure | In The Time of Water
101/EXHIBIT proudly presents In the Time of Water, a solo exhibition from artist Siobhan McClure. Featuring twenty-one new works, In the Time of Water will continue McClure’s ongoing narrative series. A limited edition tri-fold show card detailing the intricacies of this narrative will accompany the exhibition.
The opening reception with the artist will be held on Saturday, September 13th, from 7 – 9pm, and the exhibition will conclude on October 18th. 101/EXHIBIT is located in West Hollywood at 8920 Melrose Ave on the corner of North Almont Drive, one block south of Santa Monica Blvd.
In the Time of Water continues Siobhan McClure’s epic narrative about bands of children that have been left to negotiate the post-apocalyptic urban wasteland “Mirror City.” Inspired by the stillness of Vermeer and the silhouetted German Romantic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich, McClure has used heightened one-point perspective and delicately rendered figures to engage the viewer with the strangeness of destruction and the possibility inherent within reorder. In addition to fueling such an elaborately cohesive body of work, the conflicts faced by these hierarchical tribes of children provide a fantasy space for the artist to negotiate the existent challenges of today’s tumultuous urban centers. The show includes fifteen watercolor and gouache works on paper, and six medium to large-scale oil paintings on canvas that resume the story of her 2010 exhibition, The Tale of Pearl, at Richard Heller Gallery.
Each work from In the Time of Water functions as a fragmented view of McClure’s larger narrative which is ultimately connected by her own elaborate legend of reoccurring motifs. Though complex, the legend is meant as more of an aid than as a pre-requisite to viewing the works; a window into McClure’s artistic process. As Bill Callahan sings in From the Rivers to the Ocean, “Have faith in wordless knowledge. Well, I could tell you about the river or we could just get in.”
Born in 1955 in Margate, England, Siobhan McClure has lived and worked in the Los Angeles area for over 20 years. Her previous solo exhibitions include The Tale of Pearl at Richard Heller Gallery (2010),The Garden at Lara Schlesinger Gallery (2008), and two shows with Jan Baum Gallery (2003, 2001). McClure’s work has also been included in numerous group shows including Prep School at the Torrance Art Museum earlier this year, Artists’ Tales at the Irvine Fine Art Center in 2012, among others at Andi Campognone Projects in Pomona, CA, Angel’s Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, and the Center for Contemporary Art in Sacramento.
Additionally, McClure was featured in the publication New American Paintings, No.97, 2012, juried by Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator at the Hammer Museum, and was a finalist in the 2011 Google Invitational Competition for Site Specific Projects in Venice, CA. Her work has been reviewed by Peter Frank of the Huffington Post and Holly Meyers of the Los Angeles Times.
101/EXHIBIT was founded in 2008 in Miami, FL. Named after its original location, 101 NE 40th St., the gallery actively represents an international group of prolific emerging and established contemporary artists. Initially built around artists who emphasize the human form and figurative concerns, the gallery program embraces unparalleled craft, counter trend experimentation, New Media, and deviations into abstraction, installation-forward, and object-based works to expand the greater initiative of the program.
