Doreen McCarthy, Light Weight, Dietl International

Doreen McCarthy Light Weight, Dietl International

By AMANDA CHURCH April 24th, 2026

So many things can be inflated, from egos to blow-up dolls, beach balls, and party decorations. However, there’s also a significant art historical lineage of inflatable work, running the gamut from Oldenburg and Warhol to Koons, Paul McCarthy, Marc Quinn, and Nancy Davidson, to name a few. Light Weight, Doreen McCarthy’s installation of three large-scale, vibrantly colored — glowing red, orange, and blue vinyl — sculptures in the exhibition space at Dietl International was curated by Rory Donaldson with an emphasis on the dramatic shadows cast by McCarthy’s forms, creating wall drawings that function independently from the three-dimensional work.
 

Doreen McCarthy Light Weight, Dietl International

Conjuring truncated or distorted bodies or somatic extensions, these sculptures interact on a variety of levels from purely formal to borderline anthropomorphic. They are present, they are ghostly, they are joyful, they are haunting — somehow, they elicit a host of sensations, “popping” both in Pop-art terms of referencing kitsch or commercial production as well as in the creation of a purely visual impact as they hover in space. At human or larger scale, the work invites spectator interaction and close scrutiny of what’s going on inside. I noticed more than one viewer peering into its depths as if gazing into a crystal ball. Is the material’s translucency meant to imply vulnerability and transience? How does each object relate to the space around it and how do they as a group relate to each other? It’s tempting to imagine them in a spirited conversation but that’s essentially what we as sensate spectators project onto them. They are, after all, simply nonrepresentational vinyl forms filled with air. This fluidity of affect and allusiveness are part of the magic that animates these pieces.
 

Doreen McCarthy Light Weight, Dietl International

McCarthy cites Austrian artist Franz West as a significant influence, and a connection in their playful, unconventional approach to form and materials is evident. Like West, McCarthy makes shapes that contrast conceptual rigor with lumpy, provocative humor. Her sculptures, with their bulges and protuberances, also hint at an underlying eroticism. Take 2023’s Queue’s slithering snake-like configuration, its dual protuberances wagging with a sort of sexy swagger, while Screen, 2024, balances on the floor with the appearance of spread legs. The newest piece, Balls, 2026, is a squat orange shape perched on what looks like a green inner tube or doughnut. As a group, these buoyant humanoid sculptures pose questions about materiality, scale and temporality; as McCarthy points out, “They employ air as a primary material to question ideas of permanence, power, and stability.”