Matt Morris, Christopher Gambino and Paula McLean
Greetings, Mary Garden
Curated by Marie Ségolène C Brault
Espace Maurice
March 29, 2025 – April 19th, 2025

There was never a particular reason for the scallop shells. It wasn’t a sailor’s idea. Nor were they a tradition pulled from Grecian mythology, or medieval sorcery. It wasn’t as if they took the mermaid’s brassiere and turned it into two lampshades. Lights could only line the stage the way they did at the time and so it was only natural to open the shellfish, to hold the flames up from their bellies, facing the feet of the divas –the goddesses. How would you have caught a glimpse at the operatic voices, otherwise? How would the mouths have emanated such a sound? Without the fish, the light and the brass fixtures made like shells… It had never occurred to me that the mother of pearl had a sound. That the oceanic breath of the shell was a voice. I suppose it is only natural then, that the divine singers would proudly stand above them, amplified. Exhaling and inhaling the pearlescence into song. 

Some have said that the shells had a distinctive smell. The warm brass couldn’t help but mix to the shadows of the red velveteen seats and the cold tobacco on the satins and leathers of the theatre goers. Operas each have their nuances. Chicago certainly couldn’t have been quite as dirty a smell as Paris. It hadn’t been around long enough. Mind you this wasn’t about the purity of the water or the cow fat soaked in roses. Although that certainly played its part in igniting the senses. The night time has always been the best time to conjure pheromones, anxieties and fears. At the foot of the stage, even the voice seemed to come with its own distinctive musk. 

I have heard of lovers changing scents as desires dissolve. Their skin turning, like yogurt, from a yeasty ferment. They say some of the legends of the stage barely broke a sweat – all those nights in a row turning heartaches and longing into song. This unnatural mastery of the voice, some dominance over oxygen.

From the moment I first found out about Mary Garden (the opera legend), all I can think about is how a diva never exits the stage under someone else’s order. Often, her last performance is the penultimate one, and it is her mastery over her ending that makes it last. 

Garden herself, would eagerly admit: it takes more than a voice to leave a lasting impression.

**

Matt Morris is an artist, perfumer, and writer based in Chicago. Morris has presented artwork internationally including Andrew Kreps, Margot Samel, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York; Musée de la Fraise and Ruschman, Berlin, Germany; Netwerk Aalst, Aalst, Belgium; Krabbesholm Højskole, Skive, Denmark; / Slash, San Francisco, ILY2 and Cherry & Lucic, Portland, OR; CA; DePaul Art Museum, Ruschman, LVL3, and Queer Thoughts, Chicago, IL; Mary + Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL; Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL; and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH. Morris has contributed to Artforum.com, Art Papers, ARTnews, Flash Art, Fragrantica, Sculpture, The Seen, and X-TRA—additional writing appears in numerous exhibition catalogues and artist monographs. Chapters of Morris’ writing are included in the anthologies Olfactory Art and the Political in an Age of Resistance, Routledge; and Atem / Breath, De Gruyter, with Dr. Dorothée King. Morris is a transplant from southern Louisiana who holds a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and earned an MFA in Art Theory + Practice from Northwestern University, as well as a Certificate in Gender + Sexuality Studies. Morris is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Christopher Gambino (b. 1996) is an artist in New York. Christopher received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018. Christopher’s work has been exhibited recently with Pop Gun (New York, NY), Quarters Gallery Projects (Los Angeles, CA), and KMS Enterprises (New York, NY).

Paula McLean (b.Sarnia, Ontario) is a visual artist and writer based in Toronto. She  received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Studio Art from Concordia University in 2017 and a Master of  Fine Art at the University of Waterloo in 2019. She has exhibited her work at Patel Brown,  Hearth, Pumice Raft and Blouin Division in Toronto, Centre des Arts Actuels Skol in Montreal,  KWAG in Kitchener, and Weatherproof in Chicago. A recipient of the Keith and Win Shantz  Scholarship, she was a studio assistant for Ireland-based painter Ciarán Murphy in the summer  of 2018. Her thesis show, To Catch a Glimpse of Things, was exhibited at the University of  Waterloo Art Gallery in May 2019.