Jennifer McNeely’s sculptures teeter on the edge of inchoate, ineffable objecthood: glimmering bundles and bouquets of shiny bric-a-brac; wax urchins pricked with gold pins; pearly baubles threaded together and nested into softly bristling cocoons; textile sculptures knotted out of satin, burlap, fur, hair, condoms. Each piece embodies beauty and abjection in equal portion, infusing banal, often off-putting material with an uncanny sense of the feminine. The result is material transformed into something that feels dangerous—like vagina dentata nested in a powder puff—or designed with intentional uselessness, channeling the subversive furry mouthfuls of Oppenheim’s teacup.
McNeely sifted through some 50 notebooks from the past 20 years to cull images that reveal one aspect of her process.
“As a material-based sculptor, I tend use my sketchbook to flush out ideas, come up with titles and to decide placement for installations,” McNeely says. “One of my favorite things is my sketched inventory list I do when I have an exhibit. When I work, I typically ‘sketch’ with my materials, and pin up or lay out textures that I’m attracted to. My process is highly intuitive and very 3D, so coming across some ‘idea’ sketches as I was looking for this project was surprising. I’m also an obsessive doodler and have lots of margins and notes that end up covered with the same shape or image, a visual mark of a busy or frantic thought. After doing this exercise, I want to re-introduce myself to the habit of sketching. As my life has become busier and my studio time more regimented, I’ve let go of those practices.”
