Returning to the Archie Bray Foundation

This July I’m returning to the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana, for a five-week visiting artist residency. The Bray looms large in my history: I was a summer resident in 2007 and later a long-term resident and Lilian Fellow in 2011. Heading back to Helena feels like a homecoming.

Group Show at Mindy Solomon (Video)

A short video from Group Show (a solo show), on view at Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami through May 31. Each of the sixty cast iron panels in the exhibition carries a description of another artist's work: phrases generated by AI, drawn by hand letter by letter, and cast in iron at the Kohler foundry.

The described artworks aren't present and the source artists aren't named. What a viewer has is the object in the room and whatever artwork the words call up as they read, a piece that exists only because it's remade in the mind. The show is built to keep moving. Most panels sit on low racks on the floor, the ones on the walls get swapped out over the run, and every arrangement is one group show among many. Each visitor leaves with a different exhibition than the last.

Here's what that looks like in practice.

Birdhouse at Pond

I have made a birdhouse. It is in “Birdhouse,” a show of birdhouses at Pond in Fayetteville, May 22 through August 8.

Happy second birthday to one of the best small galleries around.

Reception Friday, May 22, 5:30–8.

Pond Gallery

Group Show (a solo show) at Mindy Solomon

My second solo exhibition with Mindy Solomon Gallery, Group Show (a solo show), is on view in Miami April 25 through May 31.

The show debuts sixty cast iron panels produced during my Arts/Industry residency at Kohler, each bearing a short description of another artist’s work, drawn by hand, modeled letter by letter, and cast in iron. From my statement: “The work is the result of a series of translations, each leaving a trace in the final object.”

If you’re in Miami before it closes, go see Mindy and tell her I sent you!

Mindy Solomon Gallery

Gallery Talk at Belger Crane Yard

If you’re in Kansas City this week: I’ll be at Belger Crane Yard Studios on Friday, March 6th for a gallery talk in conjunction with These Things Take Time, part of First Friday in the Crossroads Arts District. Come say hello, ask some questions.

Handwork 2026: These Things Take time

Pleased to share that “These Things Take Time” is a featured exhibition in Craft in America’s Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026, a nationwide Semiquincentennial initiative to showcase the importance of the handmade both throughout our history and in contemporary life.

Handwork 2026 is a year-long collaboration among organizations, educators, and makers to celebrate the diversity of the crafts that define America, bringing compelling stories and underrepresented art and artists into the spotlight.

Link here.

These Things Take Time at Belger Crane Yard

My largest exhibition to date opened last night in Kansas City. These Things Take Time, at Belger Crane Yard Studios February 6 through May 2, is a survey bringing together fifteen years of work, 2010 to 2025, united by dark, light-absorbing surfaces.

From the press release: “Belger Crane Yard 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.”

The show spans early raku-fired pieces made in New Zealand, the installation-based work of the mid-2010s, and new explorations begun during my 2024 residency at Belger. I’m deeply grateful to the Belgers and the BCY staff for the invitation and their care with this work.

Link to more info here.

Between Frequencies at Chico State

Linda and I are headed west. Between Frequencies, our two-person exhibition, opens September 25th at the university galleries at California State University, Chico, Linda’s alma mater, with an artist talk and reception that evening. We’ll spend a couple of days as visiting artists: demonstrations, studio visits, and a professional practices seminar with students. Come by if you’re in the North State.

Shaping Time at the CU Art Museum

Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020 opened September 5th at the CU Art Museum in Boulder, organized by Hope Saska, and runs through December 19th. The exhibition gathers alumni of CU Boulder’s ceramics program, where I earned my MFA in 2009, and my piece Didn’t Miss a Thing (2023) is included. Boulder is where much of my thinking about this medium took shape, so this one feels special. It’s also incredible to see the list of artists who have come through the program at CU that are included!

Artist Talk at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center

In conjunction with my Arts/Industry residency, I gave an artist talk at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, sharing what the first half of my time in the foundry has produced so far. Also presenting were the other fantastic residents of my cohort, Margaret Jacobs, Marie Lorenz, and iris yirei hu. Feeling so grateful to be of this excellent group and for all of the effort and support the staff of JMKAC and Kohler have put into making our time an experience unlike any other.

Ashtrays! at James May Gallery

A bit of fun: I have work in Ashtrays!, the third iteration of a show organized by Peter Morgan. This time, organized by Craig Clifford and featured at James May Gallery in Milwaukee, March 7 through May 31. It is exactly what it sounds like, but better than it has any right to be.

Kohler Arts/Industry Residency

Big news to start the year: I’ve been selected as one of twelve artists for the 2025 Arts/Industry residency, the storied collaboration between the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Kohler Co., and I’ll be spending roughly three months working in the Kohler foundry in Wisconsin. Working on the factory floor alongside Kohler’s associates is an opportunity I’ve dreamed of for a long time. More from Sheboygan soon!

In Residence at Belger Crane Yard Studios

I’ve been in Kansas City as a visiting artist in residence at Belger Crane Yard Studios: a concentrated run of studio time, plus studio visits with their resident artists. Kansas City has been good to me over the years and it was good to be back in the Crossroads. The work started here will surface soon.

Teaching at Penland: “Mold-making: The Uncanny Surface”

This June 2–14 I’ll be teaching a two-week workshop at Penland School of Craft: Mold-making: The Uncanny Surface. Two weeks devoted to plaster, casting, and the strange charge an object carries when its surface has been borrowed from somewhere else. While in residence I’ll also give an artist talk, and work of mine will hang in the instructor exhibition.

Gallery Talk on Toshiko Takaezu at Crystal Bridges

On March 2nd I’ll be at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art giving an invited gallery talk on the work of Toshiko Takaezu, in conjunction with the exhibition Takaezu & Tawney: An Artist is a Poet. Takaezu’s work has meant a great deal to me for a long time, and getting to talk about it surrounded by the objects themselves is a rare treat. 1:00 p.m. in the Early American Gallery. Free, no ticket required.

"Live From the Moon" at 108 Contemporary

Linda and I have a two-person exhibition, Live from the Moon, opening today at 108 Contemporary in Tulsa, on view August 4 through September 24.

From the exhibition statement: “Partners in both life and profession, Linda Lopez and Mathew McConnell have worked side by side for more than a decade. In these years, the distance between their practices has remained stubbornly intact. Their working methods, conceptual premises, and aesthetic hallmarks have remained distinct, even while they rely fully upon one another as guide and confidante. Remarkably few decisions go undiscussed between them as their work is being made, and they know each other’s practices as well as any other person could.”

If you’re in Tulsa this summer, stop in
108 Contemporary