Matthew O’Reilly isn’t afraid of being a little irreverent.
The Canadian artist, who’s spent the past two years as a resident at the Clay Studio of Missoula, likes to make functional work and sculptures that lean into the grotesque and satirical. He wants to get a chuckle that helps the deeper material go down more smoothly.
In “Shed Light,” his show that’s just wrapped up his time at the nonprofit clay center, he sculpted statuesque male heads with everyday names like Max and Jim. Some of them are standalone busts, or vases, even lamps. He built a functional throne that’s occupied by three cats with human heads.
Matthew O’Reilly hosted his art show “Shed Light” at the Clay Studio of Missoula through the month of June. O’Reilly’s collection includes busts with multiple expressions and a painting of a bison with five legs.
“I deal with some heavier themes around suffering and human experience and hard emotions, and then I find humor, the grotesque in particular, is really disarming, and it allows people to have a conversation about something without raising all these guards we have,” he said.
People are also reading…
