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This summer our collective psyches are plagued by the war in Iraq, pre-election political rhetoric, and a waning — or allegedly recovering, depending whom you believe — economy. And in Cleveland, there has been little respite from a month-long deluge of rain.
If you are looking for relief from these ubiquitous stressors, visit CMA's Project 244, where four large-scale paintings and six drawings by Los Angeles artist Kelly McClane are sure to transport you to another place. It may not always be an entirely comforting place, but like Oz in The Wizard of Oz , some of what you will see will frighten you, while other things will visually captivate you.
McClane's work is stunningly beautiful yet coldly surreal, as she depicts otherworldly landscapes that are visually mesmerizing and psychologically disturbing. The artist's use of thin oil glazes makes viewing the work a sensual experience; fields of matte pigment meld with slick, icy-looking areas, creating a visually balanced, delicately sublime surface. The ten pieces in the exhibition are studies of dichotomous relationships; formally, she explores the contrast of glossy and lusterless surfaces, and thematically, she examines the paradoxical relationship between nature and humanity or human progress.
The title of the exhibition, My Blue-Green Algae, refers to the scientific belief that all life began when blue-green algae emerged 300 billion years ago. McClane is drawn to this idea as the beginning of, and as a microcosm of, the interdependence and interconnectivity between humans and nature. Yet McClane acknowledges that as thinking, reasoning beings, humans recognize the bond but, as she states in the exhibition brochure, “Nature doesn't care.” This notion is reflected in her work, as many of the pieces depict remote and foreboding landscapes. Survivor, done in oil and graphite, portrays an icy seascape that is rendered in a palate of deep blues, cool grays and white. Waves crash onto to an icy shoreline, and the water fades nebulously into the distance, blending with a pallid skyline. A faintly drawn white house floats at the apex of the painting; in this scenario, nature rules and it clearly does not care what is in its path. As gorgeous as the painting is, viewing the scene is enough; in layperson's terms, it's a nice place to look at, but you wouldn't want to live there.
The painting My Blue-Green Algae (Fluke) depicts a chiefly grayish-white scene with a flash of brilliant orange in the sky. McClane's use of gray and white make even one of the warmest colors on the color wheel — orange — appear cool. A few rocklike formations litter the stark landscape in this work. They are oddly reminiscent of a kind of sci-fi architecture, yet too organic in appearance to be truly inhabitable.
A collision of nature and humanity is evident in the painting Soon On Me, which portrays an urban shoreline being overcome by natural forces, mainly ocean waves and gale-force winds. The serene color scheme of clear blues, cool white and modeled grays contrasts with the chaos of a city being ravaged by a storm. This piece demonstrates McClane's talent for blending elaborate and detailed drawings of buildings and obscure architectural details with washes of color that represent water, sky and clouds. However, these lush fields of color work independently as striking abstract paintings within the overall piece.
Many of the structures in McClane's works are purposely rendered as precarious constructions, as their instability points to her feelings about human progress. “Let's face it,” she explains, “[t]hese structures, improbable as they seem, are no more improbable than our current political structure, and that is an absurd structure with very sharp edges.” Very sharp edges indeed, especially considering that those contemporary notions of progress often infringe upon the environment.
McClane's imagery and iconography thoroughly explore the ways nature dominates humanity through harsh temperatures, barren landscapes and truculent storms. However, the assault goes both ways. While, as she suggests, nature may not care about living wholly and in harmony with humans, it doesn't have the ability to care. Humans do, yet they are missing from the works in My Blue-Green Algae. At this moment in history, it is difficult to discern which entity — human beings or nature — is the most fragile, and which has the power dominate. Given the depleted ozone, global warming and the mercury-laden fish in Lake Erie, nature may currently have the upper hand; if it cared, it would want us to notice that it is rebelling against the abuses of humanity.