When Isabelle Frances McGuire embarks on a new artwork, there are two requirements: It must be ambitious, and it has to be irreverent. Take Symbolic Birth Cabin Unit, an enormous reconstruction of Abraham Lincoln’s first home, which was the centerpiece of Year Zero, the artist’s recent solo show at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society. “It’s an ‘American story,’ which became interesting because I was like, What does that even mean?” says McGuire, 30. “What are the clichés of American stories that get retold over and over again?”

McGuire’s work merges popular technology with the hackneyed subjects of popular iconography. At a 2023 solo exhibit at the Manhattan gallery King’s Leap, the artist had a robotic Baby Yoda peering around a room and a talking bust of Elvis Presley wearing night vision goggles. Where’s the high tech in Lincoln’s cabin? Computer-aided milling cut its foam logs, which McGuire then painted by hand.

Year Zero was the capstone of an auspicious 18 months for McGuire, who grew up in Mount Prospect and holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The 30-year-old is part of Descending the Staircase, a group exhibition through July 6 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the King’s Leap show landed on famed curator Bob Nickas’s list of the best of 2023. Cultured magazine dubbed McGuire “your favorite curator’s favorite artist.”

These accolades are the fruits of a venture McGuire pursued during the pandemic: studying computer coding and robotics. But the artist, who identifies as nonbinary, is no Steve Wozniak, which works to their advantage. The jankiness of their sculptures locates the uncanny intersection of absurdist humor and creepiness. Across from the log cabin at Year Zero was Sleeping Vampire, which features thermoplastic figures dressed as Jesus Christ and Santa Claus resting on burial mounds. What’s exciting about McGuire’s work is its unpredictability. Unlike the King’s Leap show, with all its gizmos, Year Zero is almost rustic. “I’ve never been interested in making the same thing again, because then it loses the challenge,” the artist says. Whatever McGuire does next, it will be sure to surprise you.