Mathew McConnell: These Things Take Time

February 6 - May 2, 2026

at Belger Crane Yard Studios
2011 Tracy Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64108

Opening Reception: First Friday, February 6, from 6PM to 8PM

Belger Arts is pleased to present a survey exhibition of works by Mathew McConnell, bringing together a selection of ceramic objects produced over fifteen years of sustained inquiry into creative appropriation and artistic influence. Spanning the years 2010 to 2025, this exhibition unites pieces from multiple bodies of work that share the usage of dark (often charcoal-black), light-absorbing surfaces.

The exhibition includes works from significant moments in McConnell's career: early raku-fired pieces produced while living in New Zealand; works from his widely praised installations from the mid-2010s that cemented his signature approach to mold-making and surface development; and recent explorations produced during his 2024 residency at Belger Crane Yard Studios in Kansas City. Despite their varied origins, these works are united by their insistence on a particular aesthetic—the negative, the substitute, the object that both reveals and withholds.

McConnell's practice begins with the work of other contemporary artists. Using images, memories, and observations as starting points, he recreates forms with alterations to suit his own compositional and conceptual preferences. Mercurial and idiosyncratic, the resulting objects exist in a liminal space between the recognizable and the unknown, between influence and invention. They bear traces of their sources while taking on lives entirely their own. Central to McConnell's methodology is the establishment of clear parameters for each body of work—constraints that act as generative frameworks. He might restrict himself to particular working methods, test the limits of memory, or work atop hundreds of printed images that provide an immediate palette of formal solutions. These self-imposed limitations become the means through which his singular voice emerges, irrepressibly, despite the overwhelming influence under which the work is produced.

The dark surfaces that unite this exhibition function as an equalizing force, rendering each object as a void or placeholder—substitutes for something else. They are objects that present themselves in the negative, where specificity and anonymity exist in concert. From a distance, they appear as dark voids—distinguishable only in form. Drawing closer, textures and dimensionality emerge, and previously anonymous surfaces reveal finely reproduced details clear evidences of their own making. This interplay between what is withheld and what is revealed lies at the heart of McConnell's exploration.

Through skilled craft and rigorous conceptual engagement, McConnell interrogates the fundamental questions of contemporary art-making: What does it mean to create in an era of endless influence? How does singularity emerge from appropriation? Where is the line between theft and transformation? These substitute objects offer no simple answers, but invite sustained speculation on the nature of creativity itself.