 |
Courtesy of Leigh McCarthy
Leigh McCarthy's "Ghost Ship," one of the pieces she'll display at Cavalier Galleries, opening Friday. |
By Joshua B. Gray
I&M Staff Writer
The aged, rotting masts and rusted hulls of ill-fated ocean voyages have captured the artistic imagination of Leigh McCarthy, and the countless shipwrecks on the shoals off Nantucket have in part been the inspiration for this conceptual, multimedia artist’s newest exhibition, “Wrecked,” which opens tomorrow evening at the Cavalier Galleries on Main Street.
A life-long resident of California, McCarthy’s history on Nantucket stretches back to the early 1990s when she was a counselor at Strong Wings during her college summers. She studied anthropology, and early on was not fully committed to art, though she has been creating it from as early as the third grade. But she eventually became more focused on her craft and went on to study at Goldsmiths College in London, earning a master’s in fine arts.
“That’s when I became more serious about art as a career,” she said earlier this week as she prepared to travel to Nantucket. “I was interested in it as an undergrad, but studied anthropology instead because I found storytelling very interesting. I am happy things worked out the way they did though, because in grad school I had a different grounding than most of the other students, and I think it made me more well-rounded. Discussing the same things and talking about all these ideas and concepts, those who had studied art previously had a different understanding than I did. I came at it from a different angle and a broader perspective.”
To read the entire story, pick up this week's Inquirer and Mirror, or check out the I&M's online edition by clicking here. |
