by Margo Ashmore
Eleanor McGough has always been interested in insects, “their intricacies, their otherness, the aliens among us. How they ride air currents.” Her early sense of wonder turned, in the last seven years, to fear, in what so many describe as “the existential crisis of climate concerns.”
Work exhibited at Rosalux Gallery in September included a pile of pastel blue cut paper insects on a pastel blue table titled, “The Sky Has Fallen;” the “gone” installation shown here; and paintings of vanishing landscapes. In her artist statement, McGough says Shifting Baseline Syndrome (also the title of the exhibit) describes “the shifting threshold for our willingness to accept increasing levels of environmental degradation as normal. Recent studies show rapid insect population decline.
Once thought ubiquitous, flying insect populations now appear to be dwindling dramatically. This has broad implications for the delicate balance of the food chain, and the health of our planet.”
Lauding various artists and activists well-versed in the scientific statistics, McGough said, “My strength is more poetic emotion, trying to hit somebody in the heart.” By contrast, the process of doing her art is “incredibly soft, meditative, and simple.” She folds and cuts paper with a pair of scissors without drawing anything beforehand. Although she’s observed bugs in many books and collections, the forms are not deliberately accurate representations.
McGough lives in Northeast near the Holland Arts Building, has a studio at Northrup King Building and is a member of Rosalux on Van Buren Street NE. “I feel pretty connected. I’m often not open on First Thursdays because I want to visit other artists in the Arts District. Even in Northrup King, the sheer variety of mediums is amazing.”
Here since about 2005, McGough previously rented from Artspace in St. Paul for 13 years and said she has no
concerns about NKB’s intended new owner. “I’m more curious what they will do with the unused space. Northrup King has offered me the most stability as an artist. I hadn’t seen anything like it.”