Mary
Jo Bole, professor of art at The Ohio State University, wryly and
poignantly explores aspects of mortality and decay. Bole counts
among her most enduring influences, the untimely loss of family and
frequent childhood visits to Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, the
resting place of her “old aunties.”
Growing up, Bole was surrounded by a pervasive Victorian world of heavy lace, pressed flowers, mourning jewelry and drapery. These elements are recurrent in her practice as an artist. Working in response to memento-mori such as tombstones, mortuary- like motifs, epitaphs and the like, Bole arrivesat material manifestations that are in dialogue with profoundly human uncertainties surrounding mortality and death.
A self-confessed collector, Bole’s artist books on display here (Rust/Rest, 1996; and Thankful Subjects, 1997), reveal the sweep of her interest in material culture and her penchant for poetic juxtaposition. Bole’s fascination with Wunderkammern (cabinets of curiosity) and natural history museums featuring encyclopedic displays of oddities and the macabre, finds expression in her books. Cultural residua imaged in Rust/Rest include bridges, rainbows, tombstone portraits, rains of sperm, flowers and a stamp collector’s portfolio. These and other disparate representations surface throughout Bole’s sculptural and two-dimensional work.
Building her intricate brick and ceramic works by piece-by-piece, and casting in iron, glass and resin, Bole spends months, sometimes years, in the articulation of her pieces. The sheer visual weight and aged patina of Bole’s sculptural and installation works purposefully recall the sometimes melancholy, over-wrought style common to Victorian expression, while serving to resuscitate forgotten methods of handcraft. Bole’s long-standing use of immutable “geological materials” is also a pointed comment on temporality and the futility of attempting to mark one’s time on earth with any permanence.
Beginning with her Artist in Industry residency at the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin some twenty years ago, Bole’s sure utilization of diverse media is an outgrowth of her self-styled, factory-based residencies. Through good fortune and serendipity, she has had the opportunity to work at an Italian tomb plaque company in Vicenza, Italy, at the now-closed J. A. Dedouch Company in Chicago (which specialized in making photographically-derived memorial portrait plaques), and at Belden Brick, based in Canton, Ohio. For Bole, her varied experiences as an artist/apprentice, formulating new fabrication techniques alongside skilled trades-people, have been essential to her creative process. Photography has long been important for the artist, particularly its nineteenth century applications in response to death and child mortality. Recently she has added the historic tintype process to her repertoire.
Bole’s current artistic speculations extend to penal institutions, the history of prison sanitation, toilets and plumbing. At present, she is working on a site-specific installation detailing the very early history of institutional plumbing at the Eastern State Penitentiary historic site in Philadelphia. Her History of Penal Institution Sanitation, 2000-2008 (with a conscious nod to Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 Fountain and the readymade), features a Kohler-designed prison sink plastered with illustrated decals that narrate the genesis of prison sanitation. Bole’s interests coalesce in her 2008 cast iron Toilet Worship, in which jewelry beads adorn a toilet seat. For Bole, an intuitive attitude weaves through her explorations of mortality, morbidity, penal institutions and sanitation. Tenderness and sadness, humor and fascination are all manifest in her artistic journey.
Dan Younger
Director
Installation views of Through the Hourglass
Growing up, Bole was surrounded by a pervasive Victorian world of heavy lace, pressed flowers, mourning jewelry and drapery. These elements are recurrent in her practice as an artist. Working in response to memento-mori such as tombstones, mortuary- like motifs, epitaphs and the like, Bole arrivesat material manifestations that are in dialogue with profoundly human uncertainties surrounding mortality and death.
A self-confessed collector, Bole’s artist books on display here (Rust/Rest, 1996; and Thankful Subjects, 1997), reveal the sweep of her interest in material culture and her penchant for poetic juxtaposition. Bole’s fascination with Wunderkammern (cabinets of curiosity) and natural history museums featuring encyclopedic displays of oddities and the macabre, finds expression in her books. Cultural residua imaged in Rust/Rest include bridges, rainbows, tombstone portraits, rains of sperm, flowers and a stamp collector’s portfolio. These and other disparate representations surface throughout Bole’s sculptural and two-dimensional work.
Building her intricate brick and ceramic works by piece-by-piece, and casting in iron, glass and resin, Bole spends months, sometimes years, in the articulation of her pieces. The sheer visual weight and aged patina of Bole’s sculptural and installation works purposefully recall the sometimes melancholy, over-wrought style common to Victorian expression, while serving to resuscitate forgotten methods of handcraft. Bole’s long-standing use of immutable “geological materials” is also a pointed comment on temporality and the futility of attempting to mark one’s time on earth with any permanence.
Beginning with her Artist in Industry residency at the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin some twenty years ago, Bole’s sure utilization of diverse media is an outgrowth of her self-styled, factory-based residencies. Through good fortune and serendipity, she has had the opportunity to work at an Italian tomb plaque company in Vicenza, Italy, at the now-closed J. A. Dedouch Company in Chicago (which specialized in making photographically-derived memorial portrait plaques), and at Belden Brick, based in Canton, Ohio. For Bole, her varied experiences as an artist/apprentice, formulating new fabrication techniques alongside skilled trades-people, have been essential to her creative process. Photography has long been important for the artist, particularly its nineteenth century applications in response to death and child mortality. Recently she has added the historic tintype process to her repertoire.
Bole’s current artistic speculations extend to penal institutions, the history of prison sanitation, toilets and plumbing. At present, she is working on a site-specific installation detailing the very early history of institutional plumbing at the Eastern State Penitentiary historic site in Philadelphia. Her History of Penal Institution Sanitation, 2000-2008 (with a conscious nod to Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 Fountain and the readymade), features a Kohler-designed prison sink plastered with illustrated decals that narrate the genesis of prison sanitation. Bole’s interests coalesce in her 2008 cast iron Toilet Worship, in which jewelry beads adorn a toilet seat. For Bole, an intuitive attitude weaves through her explorations of mortality, morbidity, penal institutions and sanitation. Tenderness and sadness, humor and fascination are all manifest in her artistic journey.
Dan Younger
Director
Installation views of Through the Hourglass