Dismantle exhibition 2021

Dismantle -An exhibition of prints by Jenny McCabe

The Storey Gallery, Lancaster 1st - 4th December 2021

During lockdown, I felt both restricted and a strange new sense of freedom - freedom to make - never before had we had such an extended period of time when the normal routine could not be done and normal methods of showing and selling work weren’t available - so I filled this new time with making - obsessively making - I wanted to explore a simple idea thoroughly - making the same thing over and over again - exploring the technical possibilities and the idea of flocks and multiples that I always come back to.

Quite quickly I decided it could be an exhibition (the artist compulsion to think of how I can show anything I make) I booked my local beautiful victorian gallery space for 1 year ahead hoping Covid would be over by then and giving me a deadline to work towards.

Spoiler - covid was not over - But restrictions were reduced enough for me to be able to go ahead with the exhibition.

My obsession was corvids - big black silky corvids in all their forms- and my medium was cardboard - purely out of its ease of access but also my joy in making a bit of card into something with life and movement.

In the end, I made over 50 new collagraph plates and created a long continuous piece of work that ran the whole length of the room which was over 22mts long. I included every UK corvid variety and created a soundtrack of corvid calls and layered up a 2-hour repeating soundscape making visitors feel like the birds on the wall really could leap off the paper.

I showed finished work and preparatory work. I displayed the collagraph plates together on the gallery wall as a piece in itself, the practical me wanted people to see how beautiful the plates are but also

I had hundreds of visitors over the 4 days and lots of wonderful feedback - I'm so glad I did it even though it was stressful and expensive - it was a useful exercise in seeing an idea through to its conclusion.