Bucks County artist Mare McClellan is a keen observer of the living world. Her work doesn’t just depict nature; it emerges from sustained, physical engagement with it. Her time at Gino’s Nursery and close observation of ecosystems inform both her materials and her thinking.
The paintings, as well as the sculpture featured in “An Echo Familiar,” present a convergence of abstraction and ecology. The layered tactile surfaces of her paintings hint at earth and sky, growth and erosion. In the “Aloft” series, floating wing-like forms are imaginings of the tracks left in the air by fluttering flight.
Wire armatures wrapped meticulously in natural fibers and paper, McClellan creates cocoon-like sculpture. “A meditative process,” she describes as such, as is her weaving, gathering stalks of dogbane and gleaning the fiber for hours by hand.
The care required in her making, which is infused in her art, mirrors her attentiveness to the flora and fauna with which we humans coexist.
