The Brooklyn Rail

Ascending the circular Art Deco staircase of the New York Studio School, one immediately glimpses Jenny Lynn McNutt’s Roof Guardian (2020), a sinuous, iridescent gray fish in one of the two copper-toned niches of the building’s foyer. In both appearance and pose, Roof Guardian falls under the heraldic classification of a “torqued dolphin,” which, while a seemingly extraneous detail, cuts to the heart of McNutt’s practice: the almost familiar, yet uncomfortably surreal. The matte, gunmetal-colored beast with glossy celadon maw is almost at home in the Deco surroundings, but not quite. In Touch Me, this off-ness ranges in subtle shifts in pose or finish in McNutt’s ceramic bestiary—such as the glistening frog orgy Chimera with palladium glaze (2022-23), which presents three anatomically normal amphibians—to the terrifying series of bulbous, writhing pigskin-like forms with multiple limbs emanating from a bloated trunk, as in Ninhursag (red belly) (2017) or Inanna (pink hexapod) (2017). Ninhursag and Inanna are both Mesopotamian goddesses, and combined with the heraldic dolphin, and many other figures in Touch Me, one quickly divines that McNutt experiments with notions of the mythological as alien and foreign to human sensibilities, the inverse of the anthropomorphizing impulse, through symbolism.

McNutt has a grand time pulling from various traditions and stylistic impulses across the span of history and from around the world. The doorway to the inner room of the gallery is flanked on either side by two pieces based on Chinese tomb guardians, Zhenmushou Langyao and Zhenmushou with ancient green metallic and celadon glazes (both 2019). Modified only slightly from the traditional typology to appear a bit more relaxed, the beasts’ hind legs splay out on either side as if they are reclining rather than tensed up for the kill. McNutt also enjoys riffing on the traditional puns one finds in classical furniture, like the clawfoot. McNutt’s sculptures’ feet have a clear presentational/framing purpose. Heffalump with Stupa and El Viejo, Heffalump (both 2023) appear to be two conglomerations of juicy colorful viscera, perched on four sturdy legs, and Chimera with glazed base (2022) is a low-gloss porcelain pair of frogs in flagrante delicto, resting on a three-legged brown pedestal. In Oracle with bronze glazes (2018–19) an enormous rabbit head rests atop two pairs of human legs with animal paws—there is the first impression of a crouching monster, though this is dispelled on closer inspection—a disembodied head on a leg base. Even when the feet are not particularly practical, as in Gravity and Grace and Gravity and Grace 2 (both 2025), where a pair of arms emanate from a blossoming shell-like form, the literal symbolism of the clawfoot still resonates. The Gravity and Grace pair are an off-white porcelain, and with their gentle, vertical oval silhouette and forward projecting base, one can’t help but wonder if this is also a nod by McNutt to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain.

Despite all the animal heads, biomorphs, and limbs, both human and otherwise, McNutt holds tight to her medium, dazzling the viewer with luscious, swirling, favrile, metallic glazes. The key thing about mythological beasts is that they aren’t flesh and blood like us: harpies have bronze feathers, the Egyptian gods have skin of gold. The foreignness of supernatural creatures lies not necessarily in convincing us with realism, but beguiling us with fantasy. McNutt does just that, reimagining our myths, fables and nightmares with both radiance and horror.