06/01/2026
John & Robyn Horn Exhibition Gallery
"Now is the Time to Understand More"
On view through August 29
Mary Hallam Pearse
FULL BLOOM
Lead and steel
5 x 3 x 3 feet
“In 2020, I took a somewhat dangerous leap in my work when the pandemic was in its infancy. We were hearing for the first time about Ahmaud Arbery being lynched in Georgia, although we were learning it had happened much earlier. I had time to make calls to elected representatives in Georgia, to feel some of the deepest despair and anger I’d ever felt. I had only a few materials at hand, as my studio at school wasn’t accessible; I had paper and scissors, I had time to feel, to think, and to make. I started developing patterns to make paper flowers. One thing was certain: I awoke each morning to make paper flowers. With little idea of where this would lead, I knew in the end the flowers would be made of lead. In the beginning, I thought the piece was going to be a bouquet of flowers, but as my anger and rage mounted as the world seemed to come undone, the piece grew and took on a life of its own.
Full Bloom examines how the material lead and the symbolic nature of flowers express the paradoxical link between the world brought to us by our senses, our desires, and death. The accumulation of matter plays a role in shaping the work while simultaneously conveying the emptiness of overconsumption and the deep gulf between what is recorded of the past and present experiences. Lead plays a leading role, bringing with it a dark and troubling history. Its properties make the history of its use manifold and contradictory, as a murderous projectile and shield, protecting and destroying, attracting as much as repelling. Flowers, symbols of luck and love, markers of mourning, of devotion, of celebration, are used to remember, to declare, to fill voids, playing a complex role in seduction and desire. The social, political, and personal merge together to explore themes of mortality and the human condition.”
Artist info at the link in bio.
