Jennifer McCandless ( She/her )

My current work, which employs a sort of Magical Realism, is a collection of ceramic sculptures using humor and satirical narratives to challenge viewers to examine their perspectives on constructions of identity and societal norms. The pieces offer a social critique of how we see ourselves, interact with one another, and interpret the ills of the world. My fascination with human behavior is cultivated in the study of the figure. The expressive quality of clay is used to take dark personal and social realities and offer playful, ironic or damning commentaries. Our relationships to ourselves, each other, death, religion, nature: these are everyday topics, but are often rather unpalatable to think seriously and critically about. Art allows me to slow down a daily media barrage of superficial ideas and contemplate through sculpture a point of view, communicating, hopefully through humor, my frustrations and thoughts.

Artist Profile:

Jennifer McCandless , born 1967, Detroit,MI.

Jennifer received her BFA in Sculpture from Otis/Parsons School of Art and Design and her MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has taught Ceramics and Sculpture at Wayne State University and The Loomis Chaffee School. She is currently Art Department Chair, Curator and Director of the Mercy Gallery and a Nichols Fellow in Art at Loomis Chaffee in CT. Jennifer has exhibited nationally and has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Michigan Council for the Arts Individual Artist Grant, The Palmer Fellowship 2011- 2015 and the Skowhegan Fellowship. Her extensive exhibition history includes shows at the National Sculpture Society, the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, The Lemberg Gallery, the Housatanic Museum, the John Sly Ely Museum, the Elmhurst Art Museum, Hyde Park Art Center, The Frederick Meijer Museum of Sculpture and in 2018, her work was featured in Fahrenheit 2018 at the American Museum of Ceramic Art. She has also exhibited in the Miami (X Contemporary)and NYC (Superfine) art fairs 2015-17. She was recently an artist in residence at Abba House (Ghana), MassMoCA and The Millay Colony. She was artist in residence at ChaShaMa North in 2021and had a solo exhibition at Soapbox Arts, September, 2021. She is represented by A.I.R. in Brooklyn, NY and Soapbox Arts in Burlington, VT.