Measure of Success 2015 Print

"With a longstanding appreciation for the abandoned and obscure, Kathleen McSherry's approach to sculpture can be described as archaeological. Her work references multiple strata of American culture, refusing to be tethered to a singular aesthetic. Her choice of composition and media are benefited through their familiarity, giving the chimeric aspects of her sculpture a sense of uncanniness, yet wonder. This observational quality in McSherry’s work is self-evident; her media is as much the refuse of modern culture as it is the thematic components of our everyday lives. McSherry’s unique deconstructive techniques elevate the mundane and forgotten, rather than focusing on the traditionally beautiful. The act of freely altering and misusing the intended purposes of her media allows her a wide range in the field of irony. Deforming the personified and anthropomorphizing the lifeless gives even the most unsettling of her sculptures an almost religious quality, no doubt influenced by the religious tropes McSherry references. In this regard, her sculptures serve as altars to alteration and the art of assemblage, where the bodily remains of a child’s doll could just as well be reused for their inherently unnerving attributes as for their aspiration towards the ideal."