GROOMING

July 2nd - August 15th, 2026

 Opening Reception: First Thursday, July 2, 5-8PM
*Artist Walkthrough of the Exhibition: Tuesday, July 7, 5-7 PM
Second Reception: First Thursday, August 6, 5-8PM
Gallery Hours: By Appointment on Saturdays, 12-3PM

GROOMING presents new sculptures by Madison Donnelly.

Animals groom themselves, we groom our domesticated animals, we domesticate ourselves through grooming, and we are groomed by a rigid system that feels so deeply wrong and unnatural that we spew psychically at its seams. How much agency is truly available to us in a world structured by a handful of pedophilic oligarchs? Much like chess, strategy is available to us only within a rigid set of rules for domination and war.

Robert Greene outlines 48 strategies for gaining and maintaining power in his troubling guide to Machiavellianism, ‘The 48 Laws of Power’. The first law, ‘Never Outshine the Master,’ reads as follows:

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please and impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite- inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.

Though Robert describes intentional submission with the end goal of domination, how do feminized people and children internalize this law as a means of survival rather than of manipulation? I’m interested in the triangulation of desire, safety, authenticity and submission as integral parts to self-preservation within a feminized or vulnerable body. In Red queen to b5, the red queen is one move from checkmate - and it is her turn.

Ivermectin, an animal dewormer rebranded as a controversial home remedy for Covid and cancer, and beef tallow, both otherwise neutral materials have been leveraged into pawns in a culture war between ‘left’ and ‘right’, ‘science’ and ‘conspiracy’ and ‘establishment’ and ‘anti-establishment’. These two sides of American culture are desperately and strategically held apart by very thin and dusty wedges of perceived difference to keep true power out of sight.

GROOMING attempts to stir this soup of power and submission, of domesticity and ferality, and constructed difference and opposition.

Madison Donnelly is a sculptor exploring themes of artifice, domestication, ideology, and private property. Her practice examines the psychic impact of systemic neglect: the unkempt human body, rented properties, and animal and planetary neglect. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University '23 where she was awarded the Blair Dickinson Memorial Prize. She has been an artist in residence at Fountainhead in Miami, Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA, SOMA Mexico in Tlaxcala, MX, and UMOCA in Salt Lake City. Madison has shown her work at ACUD Galerie in Berlin, Helena Anrather in NYC, the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT, and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art.

*In addition to our regularly scheduled first Thursday receptions, we will hold an Artist Walkthrough on Tuesday, July 7 from 5-7pm. Madison Donnelly will be in the gallery to give small group walkthroughs of the exhibition. This is a great opportunity to see the work and speak to the artist outside of the high volume of first Thursdays. Email specialist.gallery@gmail.com with any questions.

GROOMING was funded by the 2026 Open 4Culture grant