In Mother's Arms: SPRING/BREAK Art Show Los Angeles 2023

In Mother’s Arms visualizes our relationship to Mother Earth and implies a complicated sense of security - a relationship that is thought of as universal, but is truly individual. What makes us feel a sense of protection versus entrapment? Cassandra C. Jones and Alex McClay explore these ideas through the physical and conceptual repurposing of single-use materials.

Both interested in repetition and woven images, the artists imply our relationship to Mother Earth and self through a complicated sense of security that is thought of as universal, but is truly individual. Through single-use materials they highlight the human impact on ourselves and our land, repurposing them both physically and conceptually.

Additionally, Jones and McClay explore the oppression of individuals through a non-figurative format. They focus on Mother Nature and the female body - entities which have suffered the impacts of the will of others. They recognize the innate forces that dwell on these subjects and understand

the sense of emergency that carries our present moment to shift our perspectives and reclaim their own agency. The association of the natural world with the female form is a concept that spans human cultures – the treatment of each have led us collectively to a point of environmental anxiety and a continued demand for equity.

Cassandra C. Jones is a digital collage artist who collects thousands of photographs, in both print and digital form to create intricate compositions by repeating a singular
element to form something entirely new, resulting in reflections of consumerism. Through their work created at the Taft Residency in Ojai, CA, they intend to question the relationship between man-made objects and the natural world, and are particularly inspired by the massive wildfires in 2017 - in which all of the modern-day conveniences and synthetics of our time in the surrounding houses melted. As a result, these objects turned to acidic embers, bad gases, and nano-plastics, that rose into the air, swirling in great plumes before floating down into our landscape. Jones depicts ordinarily disposable objects within their prints – balloons, beach balls, plastic straws, children’s play toys – among others, which have found their way into our plants through the soil. The inorganic waste impacts the environments we exist in, the plastic objects are endearing and humorous on the macro level, yet the reality is that these objects pose dangers and destruction to Mother Nature and our future on Earth.

Alex McClay’s artwork explores language as a means to question and disrupt the power dynamics present in our most intimate and vulnerable spaces. She conveys the feeling of having a body that is female, and all of the innate hurt that comes with it through the exploration of very intentional material choice – survey tape and flags. The material was originally used to mark and measure land, marking boundaries, an inherently abstract concept, where they otherwise would not be visible in space. These materials are reappropriated to serve as representations of the invisible barriers that guide our everyday lives through this series of textiles and installations. Though not visually represented in her work, McClay’s textiles are centered conceptually on the female form - a site most vulnerable to the violation of the boundaries set to protect it. These neon markers insinuate the defenses we build that are too often torn down.

In Mother’s Arms explores the dichotomy of warmth as a means for both healing and destruction, understanding the sense of emergency our present moment carries.