By Elin Spring
Entering motherhood is like stepping into a kaleidoscope luminosities, hues and moods constantly in flux. Following on the heels of autonomy, the hormone-fed jolt into continuous demands registers high on the internal Richter scale. Add to that the cloistering and isolation of a pandemic and the stage is set for Jennifer McClure’s sensuous and moving allegorical exhibition, “How Easily We Are Undone,” on view at Leica Gallery Boston through January 28th, 2024.

“Untitled, 2021” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
Jennifer McClure’s imagery has always explored her inner world, expressing with poignancy and cinematic drama her personal struggles, longings and hopes for human connection. On her wedding night, she unexpectedly became pregnant, and suddenly, her thoughts and feelings shifted away from herself to the nurturing of another life. She worried about what kind of mother she could be. She was surprised by the feeling that her own identity was disappearing and how “my heart expanded as I grew smaller.”

“What your bold face will show me of me, 2018” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
McClure’s feelings are channeled in a poem by Jorie Graham. The phrase from which the exhibit is titled invokes, “How easily our tracks are filled. How easily we are undone.” An expression of McClure’s sensation of diminishing as her child grew, it describes the visual narrative on the walls. Questioning self-portraits of her pregnant body give way to portraits of her baby daughter, “She is front and center in these early photos. I am the hands that hold her, the clothes to which she clings.”

“Untitled, 2020” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.

“Untitled, 2020” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.

“Untitled, 2021” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
Slowly, McClure realizes she can be both “a loving mother and my own person” and begins putting herself back into her photographs. These portraits with her daughter are pensive, passionate, reverent, as they ride the ebb and flow of familial boundaries, childhood development and Covid pandemic restrictions. Entwined bodies are marvels of chiaroscuro lighting, as sculptural as Renaissance figures, as they exemplify physical beauty and psychological tension. Other portraits – including solos of McClure or her husband – whisper with shadows and reflections, serene yet wittingly enigmatic.

“Untitled, 2020” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.

“Untitled, 2022” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.

“Untitled, 2022” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
As time passes, McClure pictures her daughter’s strides toward independence. Now, she and her husband also become more visible, revealing the family’s shifting roles. As in her past projects, McClure repeatedly engages the metaphor of water in profound and stirring ways. Both life-giving and life-threatening, water can evoke the freedom of weightlessness or the sensation of drowning. McClure’s waterborne photographs suspend us between possibilities, reflecting the sweet uncertainties of parenthood and of life.

“Untitled, 2023” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
For more information about this exhibit or to register for the weekend workshop with Jennifer McClure on December 8-10, 2023, go to: https://leicagalleryboston.com/

“Untitled, 2023” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.

Feature Image: “Untitled, 2023” from How Easily We Are Undone by Jennifer McClure, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.