[8] Friday, December 29, 2017
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Nature and culture Link between the two is examined in BAM exhibit by CARRIE RODRIGUEZ
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he nude male figure holds his bent arm over his head — a look of shock on his face with his mouth agape. The man’s fleshy stomach, arms and chest resemble that of an older man with low muscle tone and loose skin. His hoisted arm casts a bright reflection from a light that beams from the top of the oval plastic display case he stands inside. He is the only figure in the case — but he is not alone. A younger nude male figure with an athletic build in an adjacent display case faces the older man, watching the spectacle. The display is one of artist Walter McConnell’s unfired clay installations sealed in terrarium-like enclosures as part of the exhibit “Itinerant Edens: A Measure of Disorder” at the Bellevue Arts Museum through March 25, 2018. Each thick display case bears a nude male figure set in landscapes of moist red clay. These figures are familiar to McConnell; he used digitally scanned live models of himself, his 83-year-old father, his 2-year-old nephew and a family friend to create the clay molds. While his work is an inter-generational portrait of three generations rendered in fresh clay, McConnell said his family story is insignificant to the exhibit. “Whether you know the family history or not is not particularly important,” McConnell said during a phone interview from the East Coast, ‘BAM’ CONTINUED ON PG 10
{ { “Itinerant Edens: A Measure of Disorder” exhibit represents time and space. Photo courtesy of the Bellevue Arts Museum