Present / Tense is both a meditation on the extended family and an exploration of the contemporary challenges of human connection in this cultural moment of political division and environmental concerns.
Tom’s sculptures and Malayka’s paintings in Gallery B celebrate deep familial roots in Iowa. Three of Tom’s sculptures memorialize the passing of his father, William “Bud” Gormally, a native of Fort Dodge. Bud was a powerful person - the leader of the Gormally family tribe. These sculptures pay homage to his initial anxiety and subsequent acceptance, dignity, and bravery in his final journey. Several of Malayka’s paintings focus on Gormally family reunions, particularly the family’s front-lawn farewell ritual. The scattered clusters of family members remind the artist of the broader meaning of the family in the historical art canon.
Tom’s family were Irish immigrants who came to Iowa to farm in the mid 1800’s. Tom’s great grandmother Ellen Hanrahan (who married Tom Kelly), made butter from the family cows which she shipped to upscale Chicago restaurants. Every year she traded her butter, cheese, blankets, and wool scarves with Meskawki tribe members who were still hunting and fishing in the Dunkam and Fort Dodge area. The exhibit includes an essay, by Tom’s nephew, Keegan Gormally and published by Iowa Research Online, about this unusually equal trade exchange between the Kelly family and the Meskawki tribe.
In Gallery E, Malayka’s portraits focus on several groups of immigrants, including members of the Ethiopian Community in Seattle, a nonprofit community organization, immigrants from India who are members of a dance group, and French Africans living in the Seattle region. Another set of portraits was inspired by Malayka’s visit to an office of the International Rescue Committee during a day-long event for immigrants to apply for United States citizenship. Malayka was inspired to develop this project as a counter-statement to anti-immigrant policy and sentiment. Her father immigrated to the United States after WW II after his native country, the Netherlands, was devastated by the Nazi occupation. Malayka’s mother’s family were Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century.
Critic Robert C. Morgan writes, “In Malayka’s drawings we sense a human volition on the part of her subjects to become accepted for who they are – not as statistics but as a people with the same concerns anyone would feel no matter what destiny they have been given.”
Malayka also addresses anti-immigrant sentiment and the rise of the far-right, including the Proud Boys. Her oil on canvas paintings, also in Gallery E, are based on her direct observance of the far-right agitators as they gained momentum on the streets of Seattle in 2017. She brings her family background-–her parents stories of Nazi occupation–to bear in her paintings of the far-right.
Tom’s sculptures in Gallery D investigate the cultural/political divide affecting many families; the room is anchored by his sculpture US, inspired by a 1972 film by Luis Bunuel, and represents the lack of civility in the current political and cultural dialogue. Also in this gallery are Tom’s Fox In The Henhouse series, which addresses the ever-increasing divisiveness and level of vitriol in American society; with this series, he aims to inspire dialogue and help bridge the widening gap in our culture.
Critic Robert C. Morgan writes: “Looking at the “Fox Series,” completed over the past two years, I am struck by Gormally’s material knowledge, the depth of his research, and by his extraordinary ability to put it all together. One of the most striking works is Fox Leaning on the Truth (Shot Full of Holes) Beneath the Tree of Life with the Well of Knowledge, 2019. Drawn from the ancient Irish Book of Kells (384 A.D.), a Latin Vulgate text that focuses structurally on the four Gospels, this work is filled with hard-core irony, critical allegory, and absurd humor, transformed from the original source. The metaphorical role of the fox is one of betrayal. It is a sly and wily creature unable to represent honesty or truth, echoing the dire problems so overwhelmingly evident at the moment in our current dominion.”
In Gallery C, Tom tackles issues of economic policy, the environment, and climate change, including the central sculpture Load. In creating this sculpture, Tom was inspired by New Mexican folk art "death carts" that he saw 40 years ago; the sculptural cart pulls a load of nuclear cooling towers toward an unknown destination. His sculpture Rising Tides references misinformation in the media about climate change,