Jocelyn McGregor: Mantle

Mantle at Castlefield Gallery is the first major solo exhibition of work by Jocelyn McGregor. McGregor’s work involves sculpture, installation and animation. Taking inspiration from folklore, surrealism and supernatural fiction, she investigates the ways in which female identity is associated with nature, the home and the machine.

Nature in McGregor’s work is neither benign or simply aggressive as is sometimes the case in the sub-genre of Ecological Horror, when nature appears to take revenge on our problematic species for the damage we have done to it. Like leftovers from a dream McGregor’s works crawl and creep into the gallery, climbing over it, snaking round corners and hanging down walls. McGregor’s work might prompt us to consider the useful roles performed by bats, snails, spiders and worms in nature and how they ultimately contribute to sustaining human life. Crucially though, this close encounter with nature does not point towards an easy resolution, a simple becoming whole again, or being one with nature. The fragmented elements in McGregor’s work suggest something inconsistent and incomplete at the heart of what humans are, and of nature itself.