I wrote some time ago about the Art Hive, a vibrant artist collective which opened in 2023 on North Cortez. Literally a hive of variously sized studios, over 20 diverse artists buzz along in their separate spaces, sharing resources, ideas and gallery space. When the Hive opened, all participating members were asked to contribute work for an opening show. Carole Jolly, a painter whom we featured in 5enses some years ago, was excited to join this new collective, but was at the time struggling with having lost five people in quick succession who had been very close to her. The last thing she wanted to do was bare her soul through sharing her art with the public, but as a former therapist and one who values the community-building mission of the Art Hive, she began a project on grief.
Starting with a life-sized tracing of her own body, loose and somewhat distorted because she did the tracing herself, she filled in the tracing with color, painting the colors she was feeling and added many organs, mostly hearts, placed in specific places on the body related to her physical experience of grief. “The idea was that we can feel things in all different parts of our bodies, and when we’re going through very stressful things we might feel our heart in other places. I felt my knees were very vulnerable, my nerves were on fire.” Then she set up a large canvas in her Hive studio where other people could paint their own stories of grief.
During this time Zoe McCarthy came to visit. The two have known each other for many years. Zoe was really struck by the grief project and excited about the potential the Art Hive held for innovative projects. “My background is in animation, so seeing this figure, it felt like it could be animated with movement and life. I thought it would be really interesting on some of those white walls she was walking around.” Not long after this Zoe curated a show in Philadelphia of artists exploring the idea of creating responsive environments, where they could turn a room into an interface in which physical action, whether people interacting with objects or moving things around, affected digital components, like a projection on a wall. “As a freelance exhibit designer and member of a curatorial collective there, I used every opportunity to prototype different forms of interactivity. By observing user participation in interactive environments I realized that users seem most engaged when given opportunity to modify a space and leave an imprint of themselves and their choices behind. This idea evolved into ‘responsive environments’ in which user input triggers some sort of event.”
A collaboration took shape over months as the two artists shared ideas to build an interactive installation using Carole’s grief-painting concept as a starting point.
Over time Carole painted a sequel to “Organs of Grief ” called “Organs of Separated Love,” and is working on a third in the series, “Organs of Joy.” Basing the developing project on the idea that you can experience emotions in different parts of your body, Carole and Zoe are creating 3D sculptures from mannequins with hollowed-out spaces for constructed organs that “people can rearrange, both within the cavities of the mannequins and externally on altars around the gallery,” says Zoe. So a visitor could, for instance, take an organ from the grief mannequin and place it in the Separated Love figure and consider conceptually what these connections and pairings might mean. “We’re really hoping to start conversations and create a playground where people are invited to interact in ways that aren’t usually encouraged in a gallery,” says Zoe.
There will be three manifestations of the characters; the three paintings, the physical mannequin sculptures and the animated, moving bodies which will be projected on the walls. There will also be various platforms or altars where people can place organs — a nature scene, a technology altar, an isolation bench. These will hopefully provoke exploration, conversation and reflection.
Zoe and Carole are playing with many technologies to create this exhibit, and developing content through trial and error. This is what artists do: find sometimes new and creative ways to take what lives inside and manifest it outside themselves so others can have their own experiences of the idea.
Zoe and Carole are playing with sensors in some of the organs that, when placed in or on sculptures or platforms, trigger video content on the wall. The story played there will reflect what may happen when, for instance, you place the brain in a mossy, natural space and consider how your own brain reacts in a natural environment.
There will also be a table with journals and recording devices to help visitors articulate their experiences. “It’s a lot of personal narrative and personal associations with organs, but it’s also very interpretive,” notes Zoe. “It might resonate more with some than others, and we’re very curious about that.” As a painter, Carole’s understanding of and use of color is powerful and will help draw viewers into the installation.
This collaborative installation is made possible partly with a grant from the Ross Lynn Foundation, whose mission is to fund visiting artists and art collaboration. No part of this presentation will be for sale, so visitors can best appreciate the artists not by buying their work, but by visiting the Art Hive, exploring all the thought-provoking interactive possibilities, and telling friends about it.
This project has also been greatly supported by the Art Hive, which provided Zoe studio space while in residence here and has donated the space to host the show for three weeks. Much valuable support and assistance has been provided by Cloud Oakes, founder and director of the Art Hive, and by Paul Abbott, painter and founding Art Hive member. An installation like this is groundbreaking for the Art Hive, and should cause quite a stir in the local art community.
The interactive installation, titled Operation, will open on July 25 during the 4th Friday Art Walk at the Art Hive on North Cortez St. and run for three weeks. For more information, visit arthive.space. More at carolejolly.com and zmccarthy.com.
Selections from Carole’s portfolio
"Magic Mountain"
"Granite Basin Lake Lilies II"
From the "Snow Mound" series
Our cover: "Playing Fish"
