October 10, 2022 @ 9:00 am - November 3, 2022 @ 12:00 pm
Marshalltown Community College will welcome Jody Boyer as she shares a display of her artwork in MCC’s Ray Frederick. The exhibit will open Monday,
This unique display of art titled “Ice Works,” will be a collection of sculptures for photography. Boyer has worked in a lot of different mediums. Sculptures, photography, large installations and even videos. This is an exhibit she likes to refer to as time-based work. “The sculptures melt and don’t exist after photographs are taken of them. They are still images but relics of a time-based process.”
This type has been in the making since April 2020 for Boyer at the start of the pandemic. “While I sheltered in place with my family, I found myself reflecting not only on self-care but also on the roles and responsibilities of how we tend to each-other, our shared communities and our shared humanity.”
“I had a moment where I was making response artwork. I would find a piece in a museum and make a piece of art in response to it. I made a piece that was frozen cubes that sparked an idea in my mind, and I wanted to see where I could take that idea.”
In her kitchen while she prepared food for her family she explored creating ephemeral sculptural objects. The science of ice, food coloring and her freezer became her artistic tools and her kitchen a photo studio. She used decaying leftovers from flower bouquets bought to brighten their domestic space. Her and her children also began foraging in their neighborhood as a way of thinking about place and sustainability.
Since then, Boyer has been creating this type of piece every week for two years to see where the concept could continue to go.
This series is new work for Boyer, but tied to her identity as artist-researcher-mother-teacher. Creating these works and sharing them has become part of her daily practice of
living. The work investigates domesticity and physical change on a metaphoric and visceral level: decorative glassware designed for celebration, a world frozen, loss, the fleeting existence of fragile cut flowers, grief and the passing of time are all embedded in the eye-candy of these sculptural still-life photographs.
All of the pieces on exhibit will be for sale. The Ray Frederick Gallery is open weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm. For more information contact MCC Art Professor Tim Castle at 641-844-5776 or Tim.Castle@iavalley.edu.
