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Good Bones 

 

I titled this exhibit after the poem Good Bones, by Maggie Smith. This short but generous poem by Smith offers truth about the reality of the world alongside hopeful advice to her children. At the core of it, Smith insists, that her children have the power to make this difficult and complex world a beautiful and better world. 

 

The work made this past year has been created in the most difficult of circumstances. The year 2020 was an incredibly heartbreaking year, no matter your location, age, or privilege. What I find most enduring through this difficult year is the will of artists to persist in their work and in their efforts to communicate, make and think through material and movement. 

 

For the majority of artists selected in this exhibit - there is a level of transgression in the work. Sometimes this transgression is visible and clear and sometimes it is coy and subtle. The very specific manipulation of materials in sculpture and collages in the show speaks to a level of democracy, feminism and anti-establishment critique. Within the paintings selected there is a level to which reality is challenged and subverted. This opposition to ‘reality’ appears in the varied levels of representation of the body. Additionally, the painting’s perspective puts us as viewers in comedic and challenging vantage point. This location and space in the paintings is sometimes tropical, often askew, very personal and at times liminal. 

 

It is never easy to select and place so much strong work from all over the world, but it is an honor. The work in this exhibit, Good Bones is alive in a way that feels necessary and timely. The artist’s work in this show simply makes this world more beautiful. 

 

Thank you, 

 

Catherine Haggarty

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