The name Maeve McCool certainly sounds like an artist’s pseudonym. Sitting in the studio she shares with two others, behind CREATE, in Catskill, McCool explains that it is actually her name. She may not seem pretentious enough for such a hipster moniker, but, just like her work, it is aesthetically pleasing. She says she focuses on, “memory, decay, and regrowth through detailed drawings, prints, and mixed media techniques. McCool studies how capitalist production rises and falls and how rural American communities emotionally connect to industry versus nature, and ideas of home, femininity, and loss.” The 28-year-old may be best known locally first for her labor. She worked on grants with CREATE, and also is an assistant for noted Cairo-based artist Portia Munson. But her art has been getting more attention locally recently with larger shows at the Athens Cultural Center (see image just below this paragraph), and Lexington Arts + Science (see bottom two images).
Sometime last summer I noticed the recent painting she did in the photo below on her social media feed, and that image stuck with me. I missed her veiled porch at Lexington Arts + Science this summer (at the bottom of this post), but I am now looking forward to seeing her piece in “The Doll Show” (see flyer below) that just opened in Woodstock, and is up through Nov. 24. The collection of doll-oriented works — and hundreds of dolls from private collections — was curated by Munson, Eva Melas, and Carri Skoczek. Included in the show with McCool are Vivian Baumann, Corinne Botz, Katherine Burger, Dina Bursztyn, Russell Busch, Ellenora Cage, Susan Carr, Rani Carson, Julie Chase, E.V. Day, Greta Fern Donahue, Mona France, Esme Grail, Kara Grail, Yonadav Greenwood, Sandra Greuel, Freeda Electra Handelsman, Marcia Hillis, Scott Keidong, Tine Kindermann, Maria Levitsky, Alexandra Limpert, Robyn Love, Bonnie Lucas, JoAnne McFarland, Munson, Lee Musselman, Sylvia Netzer, Bradley Parsons, Jean-Guerly Petion, Emily Blair Quinn, Betsey Regan, Geova Rodrigues, Kathy Ruttenberg, Lourdes Sanchez, Skoczek, Laurie Steelink, Melissa Stern, Lori Taschler, Ginna Triplett, Regina Tuzzolino, Beck Underwood, and Lia Zulalian-Moynihan.
McCool’s studio is filled with sketches based on archival labor photos, mixing them in with images of present-day laborers, and other works in her “The Labor Project.” She also has made images of local Superfund sites, where the poisons are hidden under the pastoral images. She also has a large collection of flotsam, jetsam, and trash she has pulled from the Hudson River, that sometimes makes its way into her work. McCool seems like a direct, almost blue-collar painter, making her way in the land of trust-fund artists and unaffordable housing, with a current art-packing job, and a determination to continue because it is what she wants to do.
Images below from Lexington Arts + Science this past summer. Click at the top to listen to the full interview with McCool.
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Interview: Maeve McCool