Artist Talk and Community Conversation with Irene Delka McCray

Join exhibiting artist Irene Delka McCray for an artist talk that invites the public to commune and share stories together, while learning more about the conceptual groundings and process behind her moving works. Depicting her mother in the last years of her life, McCray’s paintings blur the line between imaginative portraiture and realism, placing her mother within natural forms as a sense of return to the world upon her passing.

Acting as her primary caregiver and sole point of support throughout her mother’s decline due to Alzheimer’s, McCray observed an unfolding and new sense of vulnerability in her mother, a source of inspiration, hope, and new found connection found through processing grief.

This event will take place in the McMahon Gallery, surrounded by McCray’s paintings on view, as a closed-door event to create a space for sharing, learning, growth, and communal joy that can stem from shared experiences. Come with a story you wish to share or with an open mind to witness and listen, and join in a community that upholds aging, wisdom from beyond, and the sources of connection that can grow out of grief and loss.