EXPO Chicago: Josh Cloud and Maddy Inez

BOOTH 219

For EXPO Chicago 2025, Megan Mulrooney Gallery is proud to present a two-person presentation of works by Los Angeles-based sculptors Maddy Inez and Josh Cloud. Both artists, deeply rooted in the greater Los Angeles area, engage with elemental materials to craft sculptural forms that delve into the intersections of materiality, identity, and the natural world.

Maddy Inez utilizes ceramics and sculpture to explore themes of healing and ancestral memory, treating clay as both a medium and a metaphor for collective trauma. Her works often evoke plants known for their healing properties or mythological significance, merging the spiritual with the ecological. This approach prompts reflection on humanity's fragile yet powerful relationship with the natural world. Inez's artistic practice is deeply influenced by her matrilineal heritage; her mother, Alison Saar, and grandmother, Betye Saar, are both renowned artists whose legacies of Black feminist and spiritual artmaking resonate through her work. This lineage informs Inez's exploration of intergenerational knowledge and the transformative power of art as a means of healing and remembrance.

Maddy Inez lives and works in Los Angeles and earned a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. Her solo exhibitions include "Of Pith and Balm" at Harkawik Gallery, New York, and "Venus Freak" at NOON Projects, Los Angeles. Group exhibitions include "Adornment Artifact" at Crenshaw Plaza and Band of Vices, Los Angeles; "Earth House Hold" at Murmurs, Los Angeles; "Obscurity and the Unknown" at Sebastian Gladstone, Los Angeles; and the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, Los Angeles; among others.

Josh Cloud creates playful, emotive sculptures centered around cartoonish self-portraits that investigate identity, queerness, and intimacy. Emerging from his sketchbook, his forms are inflated into soft, exaggerated sculptures that challenge traditional notions of masculinity by celebrating openness as strength. His sculptures process historical, generational, and personal hardships while simultaneously embracing the absurdity of life. Many of his works include found materials and possess an aged aesthetic quality, existing somewhere between art object and artifact.

Josh Cloud lives and works in Los Angeles and holds a BFA from CalArts. He is currently director of the ceramics program at CalArts. He has had solo exhibitions at South Willard, Los Angeles, and Schlomer Haus Gallery, San Francisco, CA, and has been included in group exhibitions at Guerrero Gallery, Los Angeles; Good Mother Gallery, Los Angeles; and Gordon Robichaux, New York; among others.