Mirror Stage

New works by Molly McIntyre

Aug 4 - Oct 2

Opening Reception: Thursday, August 4th from 6-8pm

These new cut-outs reflect on the nature of friendships, in particular those friendships from which we seek affirmation of our own identities. The mirror stage, as defined by Jacques Lacan, is literally the stage when a baby first recognizes themself in the mirror, but it also extends throughout our lives. Lacan says that the mirror stage creates a duality because the whole-ness of the image in the mirror is in opposition to the fragmentary nature of the self. This creates the ego and alienates the subject from the self.  Many of us became noticeably alienated from ourselves as teenagers when our bodies betrayed us by changing without our permission and we were suddenly asked to identify as a new self. I am interested in the ways that friends become our mirrors, inviting us back to a reality where we feel comfortable in our skins. As friends, we repeatedly affirm each other's presentation choices, either verbally or by echoing them in our own choices. Of course, this has the danger to become oppressive conformity. But with a close friend, who you know in all their messy fragmented selfhood, it's like you're both in on the joke of "wholeness" and it is a delight to present that face to each other and to the world, together. 

In these pieces, the cut paper images are static and whole, while the shadows behind them form more fragmented and changeable images. As the light changes, they may be temporarily aligned, as in what Lacan called a "moment of jubilation" when self and subject are of a piece, but they can never truly be united. The cut-out is always in a fixed state of wholeness that the shadow can never achieve, and together they form something more interesting than either one on its own.

Bio

Molly McIntyre is an artist and illustrator who tries to understand people. Her cut paper work, animations, and drawings all explore this process of searching, finding - and sometimes not finding - what makes people who they are. 

Molly lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, where she enjoys wandering the streets observing urban American humanity with fellow artist and husband, Brian DeRosia. She earned her BFA in printmaking and book arts from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, and her MFA from the Maine College of Art.