John MacConnell: Sum of Its Parts

John MacConnell returns to Childs Gallery with Sum of Its Parts, a new body of work exploring how identity is constructed from fragments, and meaning emerges from pieces assembled, separated, and reimagined. Rendering isolated body fragments in the style of 17th century Baroque still lifes, MacConnell's paintings read simultaneously as intimate portraits, symbolic objects, and reminders of our own impermanence. The exhibition considers what happens after fragmentation, after the rearrangement of elements, and the stories we build from what remains.

Sum of Its Parts takes its title from a phrase in Aristotle's Metaphysics, where in the philosopher asserts that 'the whole is greater than a sum of its parts,' meaning, the entirety of something contains qualities absent in its individual components. To MacConnell, whose work has long examined how identity is constructed from parsed information, the quote is a reminder that a life or story cannot be reduced to a single detail. 

The exhibition continues the artist's ongoing Fragments project, in which MacConnell abstracts the body into isolated parts – an ear, a hand, a head – and asks what narratives emerge absent the whole picture. In Sum of Its Parts, MacConnell has styled his fragmented bodies as Baroque still lifes, a genre of painting rife with multilayered meanings and hidden complexities. In the 17^th century, a still life was never simply an arrangement of flowers, food, or other objects, but rather an allegory – a contemplation on mortality, abundance, and/or desire. MacConnell's paintings are similarly complex - arranged as sumptuous vanitates, their interpretations are purposefully vague and endless.

MacConnell has artfully arranged his work to both stand together and apart. A portrait comprised of multiple canvases can present a complete figure or merely disparate parts of a whole. Each painting or configuration of works tells a different story and begets a different set of questions, allowing MacConnell to play with narrative building and mythmaking. What does one take away from a moment, a glimpse of something selectively curated? MacConnell's oeuvre explores this breaking and rearranging of images that reflects upon the power of a single gesture or detail to hint at a larger life beyond the confines of the frame. 

From the sculptures of antiquity, to the still lifes of the Baroque era, and social media posts of our digital age, an underlying concern of MacConnell's work is the preservation of memory, of community, and of queer identity, in particular. For MacConnell, fragmenting a portrait or body doesn't only divide, it also saves, holding onto something that might otherwise slip away or be lost. In Sum of Its Parts, the artist allows the body to be both object and allegory, channeling the Baroque tradition of the vanitas and memento mori while asking contemporary questions. How do we see ourselves in fragments? How do we assemble meaning from what remains? And what stories do these parts, when brought together, allow us to tell?

 John MacConnell: Sum of Its Parts is on view on Childs Gallery, November 21, 2025 through January 11, 2026. An opening reception with the artist will be held Friday, November 21, 6-8pm.