Mary-Anne McTrowe | A Study in Sea Flesh; or, The Undeliverable, Nameless Perils of the Whale

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Mary-Anne McTrowe, “A Study in Sea Flesh; or, The Undeliverable, Nameless Perils of the Whale,” no date

(courtesy of the Gallery)

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 25, 7pm – 9pm

A Study in Sea Flesh; or, The Undeliverable, Nameless Perils of the Whale – Mary-Anne McTrowe

Throughout my body of work subjects have continued to emerge that are in some state of transformation; they are, or are in the process of becoming, something else. I am interested in how things that are familiar to us can be made unfamiliar, and how a change in context can render something temporarily strange and perhaps even unrecognizable. Over the past dozen years or so my textile explorations have included using crochet and weaving to encode information, the crocheting of cozies for everyday objects, and the use of appliqué and embroidery to present large- and small-scale texts. One recurring subject is that of the globster- a mass of rotting sea-flesh that washes up on the seashore from time to time. Often initially un- or mis-identified (and usually classified as a sea monster), upon closer examination the globster is usually later found to be the remains of a shark, or a whale without its skeleton.

A Study in Sea Flesh could be a coulee landscape, a body, a pile of blankets, a mound of garbage, a replica of organic material thriving or moribund, or a terribly misshapen afghan or rug. It is not modelled after any particular globster, but it was inspired by and is approximately one-half scale of the Chilean Sea Blob of 2003.

Mary-Anne McTrowe was born and raised in southern Alberta, where she earned her B.F.A. at the University of Lethbridge in 1998. She went on to pursue graduate studies at Concordia University in Montreal and received her M.F.A. in studio art in 2001. Her work has spanned a number of different media including performance, installation, and textiles, and in her practice she explores objects that are in states of transformation, focusing on the question of how things that are familiar to us can be made unfamiliar; how a change in context can render something temporarily strange and perhaps even unrecognizable. McTrowe was a member of the now-retired folk art-ernative duo The Cedar Tavern Singers AKA Les Phonoréalistes with Daniel Wong, was a founding member of Trap\door Artist Run Centre, and currently works as a Technician in the Art Department at the University of Lethbridge.