Artist Profile: Manon Cleary

Manon Cleary is a painter living and working in Washington. Though she is straight, her husband, Steve, is bisexual, and his sexuality factors into her work. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Chicago Art Institute, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Brooklyn Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.


TNG: What are some of the ideas and themes that your work engages with?

Manon Cleary: I [do] what graduate school professors used to call "one man show images" — that is, a sustained exploration on one theme.

I did a Rape Series of self-portraits in oil and graphite on canvas which were slashed and burned. It was a more positive outlet for self-mutilation, which is one response to rape. I had been raped in Kazakhstan in the mid-nineties while there as an Artist-in-Residence.

I did a twin series, because I am identical twin and our parents dressed us alike and sent us to dancing school so we really were a freak act á la Diane Arbus.

I did a lot of nude self-portraits, which a review in Art In America said was a triumph in narcissism. I saw it more as a look at myself separate from my twin and an appreciation of my own body, separate and different from hers. Also it was started in my thirties, and it was a discovery of my own beauty after feeling skinny and tit-less in my teens and twenties. Luckily I took enough photos then that I could continue to do these drawings long after the body sagged.

I also did nude men, and like the men of yore, I sometimes used it as an excuse to get men to take their clothes off and "pose" for the so-called "female gaze." I didn't have to ask my husband to take his clothes off when I met him. He was staying in Baltimore with a friend from New Hampshire and we were talking in the garden about my art after an opening of some of my pieces. I turned around and he was nude and asked me if I wanted to use him as a model. Ultimately I did, but in rubber, not nude. He has a rubber fetish and I have started a series of him in rubber hoods, with the rubber abstracting and revealing the figure by reflection. The black rubber is a wonderful subject for the graphite technique. I have also done men in plastic bags, a full body condom, as it were, when friends were dying of AIDS. It abstracted the figure beautifully, with transparent and translucent areas as the figure moved closer to or stretched the surface of the bags.

TNG: What media do you work in?

MC: In painting, now, because of my lungs. I use water-soluble oils or if I want to make a quicker piece, gouache and ink on paper. In drawing, I use either pastels on sanded paper for colored drawings, or powdered graphite and pencil on rag paper for black and white drawings.

TNG: Do you have a favorite art spot/event in DC?

MC: I used to love First Fridays, but R Street is sort of dead and too far to walk lugging oxygen tanks. Georgio Furioso's building on 14th street is more interesting, and I love to go to Addison/Ripley, though parking is a drag, as they are my gallery in D.C., so it is like going home. I also enjoy going to Osuna's openings, but it is so far out, so I have to rely on the kindness of strangers to get me out there with oxygen. He does themed group shows where he draws upon his old time stable of artists as well as new ones, so it is good to see old friends.

TNG: Does your work engage with your sexuality, or your husband's bisexuality?

MC: If narcissism involves sex, yes, I spent years with my right hand. Steve [my husband], has more of a fetish side of him, and as a Scorpio I don't want to think of him with someone else. So thinking of his bisexuality requires that. He is a sexy man, so I would have to watch my back, front, left and right.

TNG: How would you describe the DC art scene/community? Is it a good place to be an artist?

MC: I think it is a snore fest. It might be my age, but I am not seeing shows that excite me or that I want to buy work from. Signal 66 was a bright light for a while. Maybe it is like hats: Republicans don't buy art, they have art. There is just too much "investing" in art. Molly Rupert and her Warehouse if another bright light.

TNG: How long have you been making art?

MC: Professionally, that is selling art or getting commissions, it has been since 1964, when I did a couple of oil portraits. My first gallery representation was in 1970 when I moved to DC and met Franz Bader, who gave me my first solo show and handled my work for about four years.

TNG: Do you have any upcoming shows?

MC: I had a solo show in October at the District of Columbia Arts Center. Herb White, their "angel" and major benefactor chose an artist every year for "Herb's Choice" and the previous year he had asked me to be his choice. I was working on a 40-year retrospective and didn't have time. He died this past June and Jessica, his daughter, told me he had intended to ask me again for the 2007 show. I chose to do skies as an old boyfriend and I had spent a long weekend at his house in Florida and I brought one of my skies as a houseguest present. He had a boat and we went through the waterways in it searching for the wonderful Miami Beach skies for clouds. A few of these photos or combos of photos became some of the pastel drawings in the show.

TNG: What do you see down the road artistically?

MC: I am terminally ill, so I am temporarily blocked, wondering what I have time to do a whole exhibition of. Also, every piece I make is an investment of a part of what lungs I have left. I think I will be making more of the men in rubber. TNG