Tracye Wear: Botanicals at Moody Gallery

Something vibrant and joyous surfaced out of the merde. In July 2020, Tracye Wear began to prepare for her upcoming ceramics exhibition at Moody Gallery. Her typical practice was to make preliminary sketches inspired by natural forms in her garden, then develop them into working drawings for manipulating clay into vessels and sculpture. The virus however scrambled the typical and Wear found herself turning preparatory sketches into detailed graphite drawings and colorful oil stick works on paper. About this deviation she said, “Sketches turned into detailed, intricate drawing of seeds and bulbs from my garden, dried plants friends left in my mailbox and sometimes interesting shaped fruits and vegetables from the grocery store.”

In my estimation Wear’s is skill stacked upon itself. She has a sharp gift for observation and a real knack for the vocabulary of botanicals. The images seem perched between formalist recording and imaginative refashioning. She didn’t entirely whack the idea of ceramics, she is well known for that. The exhibition “Tracye Wear: Botanicals” at Moody Gallery through May 18, 2021 features graphite drawings, oil stick drawings, and ceramic vessels and sculptures.

I’ve never been to Wear’s studio, but I saw a couple of pictures of it. There’s a work table, hand tools, shelves full of supplies, a book filled cabinet, wall-hung drawings, the kiln, and a large collection of small tiles to test color glazes. That space told me a little bit about her process.

The body of work at Moody splendidly argues against the post-modern notion that decorative art is the only art sin. “Botanicals” is Wear’s second solo exhibition at Moody. She last showed there in 2016.

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A gracious and honorable gentleman named Robert Sterling Long (1952-2021) would have been one of the first through Moody’s door to see Wear’s exuberant “Botanicals.” The virus took him from us on February 12, 2021. So long sweet Berto.

www.moodygallery.com