Skip to main content

Main Sub Nav

  • Prospective Students
  • Current Students
  • Faculty/Staff
  • Alumni
  • Employers
Home
  • About
    • About The School of Art
      • About
      • History
      • Mission
      • Solidarity & Justice
      • Contact Us
      • Visit the School
    • People
      • Directory
      • Lamar Dodd Professorial Chair
      • Visiting Artist & Scholar Lectures
      • Board of Advisors
      • Careers at Dodd
    • Facilities
      • Studios & Facilities
      • Art Library
      • Reserve A Space
      • The CAVE
      • Maps & Floor Plans
  • Programs
    • Undergraduate Programs
      • Overview
      • Undergraduate Admissions
      • Degree Options
      • Minors in Art & Art History
      • Studio Art Core
      • Courses
    • Graduate Programs
      • Overview
      • MA
      • MFA
      • MAEd
      • Admissions
      • PhD in Art with Emphasis in Art Education
      • PhD in Art with Emphasis in Art History
      • EdS in Art Education
      • Art Education Certificate Only Program
      • Funding & Research Support
      • Courses
    • Study Abroad & Field Study
      • Overview
      • Cortona
      • NYC Maymester Program
    • Community Programs
      • UGA Community Art School
      • UGA Summer Art Camp
      • Athens Art Book Fair
  • Events & Exhibitions
    • Speaker Series
      • Lecture Series
    • Calendars
      • Upcoming Events
      • Calendar View
      • Submit Events
      • Events Archive
    • Galleries
      • Dodd Galleries
      • Athenaeum
      • Online Exhibitions
      • Current Exhibitions
      • Upcoming Exhibitions
      • Past Exhibitions
      • Performances & Talks
      • Propose an Exhibition
  • Research
    • Programs
      • Art & Education for Social Justice Symposium
      • The Willson Center for Humanities & Arts
      • a2ru
      • Social Ecology Lab
      • UGA Arts Collaborative
      • Margie E West Award
    • Events & Galleries
      • Visiting Artist & Scholar Lectures
      • Research Days
      • Dodd Galleries
      • The Athenaeum
    • Research & People
      • Lamar Dodd Professional Chair
      • Dodd Interdisciplinary Fellows
      • Graduate Research
  • News
    • All News
    • Student News
    • Graduate News
    • Faculty & Staff News
    • Alumni News
    • Submit News
  • Give
  • Mobile Menu Extras
    • News
    • Events
    • Give

    Search form

    social_media

Larissa McPherson: Speculative Adornment

Larissa McPherson: Speculative Adornment, 2025
Opening reception on Friday, February 7 from 6 - 8pm

Plastic has become an unwitting colonizer of the natural body and ecosystem. Throughout time, humans have extracted fossil fuels to create plastic materials. Over time, these man-made materials break down and migrate microscopically. Through their abandonment, an act of our human carelessness, plastics on a microscopic level have started to act of their own accord and seek reunion with the earth in any way possible, unknowingly causing pain and discord in the lives of animals. This crisis has spared no species. 

In the bones of animals, discarded waste and microplastic fragments have begun to accumulate, fusing with calcium in strange and unprecedented ways. The waste reaches the animal's internal systems and breaks into small parts, taking up room in tissues and the cavities between bones. As the fragments break down, they layer as brightly colored film across the surface of bones and accumulate inside bone structures. Peculiar rough outgrowths, sprouting from the surface of skeletal structures, has been witnessed: looking internally, these formations resemble 3D-printed netting or lattice, alluding to synthetic structures under the surface of the plastic. Some mimic the shapes of existing bones— replicas of ribs or vertebrae fused awkwardly to their originals—while others were entirely unrecognizable and bizarre. Rib cages became forests of brittle, lattice-like growths, and skulls bore porous ridges that extruded waste and microscopic remnants of plastic material.

Humans, who created these consequences, are also not immune to them; we are afflicted physiologically as well. Plastics follow within the body and all around us. How far can this transformation go? Is there a tipping point where organisms can no longer sustain life with plastic-infused bodies? Is this a new phase of evolution—one dictated not by nature, but by humanity’s waste?

McPherson is a metalsmith and jewelry artist from Adairsville, GA. She is a current MFA candidate working in Jewelry & Metalsmithing at the University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art. Larissa holds a BS in Psychology from the University of West Georgia with a minor in Studio Art.

Speculative Adornment was made possible through research completed with the Wilson Center Research Grant at the Georgia Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Animal bones used in the work were ethically sourced and processed by the artist.

 

Gallery
Bridge Gallery
Exhibition Duration
February 07, 2025 - March 21, 2025
Log in to post comments
  • Larissa McPherson: Speculative Adornment, 2025

Footer Menu 1

  • Academics
  • UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS
  • Degree Options
  • Studio Art Core
  • GRADUATE PROGRAMS
    • MA
    • MFA
    • MAEd
    • PhD Art Education
    • PhD Art History
    • Funding & Research Support
  • Admissions
  • Studies Abroad & Field Study

Footer Menu 2

  • Galleries
    • Current Exhibitons
    • Past Exhibitions
    • Performances & Talks
    • Propose an Exhibitions
    • BFA Exhibition Guidelines

Footer Meun 4

  • Faculty & Staff
    • Faculty & Staff Resources
    • Curriculum Policies
    • Forms & Links
    • Dodd Studio Support
  • Graduate Students
  • Alumni
    • Create an Alumni Profile
    • Alumni Opportunities

Footer 3

  • Dodd Resources
  • Equipment Checkout
    • Open Access Fabrication Labs
    • Dodd Studio Support
  • Student Resources
    • Scholarships
  • Academic Advising
    • Degree Requirements
    • Minor Requirements
    • Area Portfolio Review
    • Internship Policy & Course
  • Student Opportunities
    • Submit an Opportunity for Students

Footer Menu 5

  • Facilities
    • Request a Meeting Space
  • Studio & Classroom Spaces
    • Thomas Street Art Complex
    • Art Library
    • Open Access Fabrication Labs
    • Maps & Floor Plans
  • Research
    • Visit the School
    • Board of Visitors
    • Visiting Artists & Scholars
    • Work at the Dodd
  • View Calendar

Footer Submit Menu

  • ALL FORMS AND LINKS
  • Event/Calendar Submission
  • Instructor Override Request Form
  • Multi-Student Override Request Form
  • Website Update

Franklin_A&S-FS-CW-(1)-websize.png

Lamar Dodd School of Art
University of Georgia
270 River Road
Athens, GA 30602

706.542.1511
 

CONTACT US

Privacy Policy | © 2020 Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia. All rights reserved.

Login  |  UGA Master Calendar  |  www.uga.edu                          website feedback