Tara Donovan - Contemporary Sculptor

[ChrissyM]

Her work is really innovative and interesting...

Tara won a MacArthur genius award this year...

2008 MacArthur Fellows
Tara Donovan

Tara Donovan is an inventive young sculptor whose installations bring wonder to the most common objects of everyday life. Donovan’s site-specific, sculptural works transform ordinary accumulated materials into intriguing visual and physical installations. Choosing a single object – such as a transparent drinking straw, scotch tape, a Styrofoam cup, or a paper clip – Donovan experiments with assembling it in different ways. Sensitive to the specific needs of her materials and the nature of her exhibit spaces, her installations are often arranged in ways reminiscent of geological or biological forms. For her 2003 installation entitled “Haze,” Donovan stacked over two million clear plastic drinking straws against a 42-foot-long gallery wall. The resulting effect, with its shifts in color, form, light, and surface, was that of a fog bank or a diaphanous cloud, providing the viewer with a compelling, perceptually transformative experience. In a 2007 untitled work, Donovan created a 50x60-foot installation using over three million seven-ounce plastic drinking cups in rows of different heights, resembling a serene, iridescent ice field. This singular artist is creating a dazzling body of work that will enrich the fields of contemporary sculpture and installation art for years to come.


Tara Donovan received a B.F.A. (1991) from the Corcoran College of Art and Design and an M.F.A. (1999) from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions at such venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.


Information as of September 2008.

www.macfound.org

I went and saw her work at the ICA in Boston a week or so ago, and though I'm not a huge fan of contemporary art her work blew me away...
I thought it was easily the best stuff in the whole museum..

She takes ordinary, everyday objects and materials and makes them extraordinary and beautiful..
really special stuff i think

if anyone has a chance to see her work in person definitely do so...
what is often most impressive is the size and the way that light plays on the objects even as you move around it and view it from different angles...

 

[ChrissyM]

even though the photos don't do the work justice.. i'll post as many examples as i can...

but first.. here is a link to an article about her from the September 08 issue of W magazine

http://www.wmagazine.com/artdesign/2008/09/tara_donovan

 

[ChrissyM]

images from acegallery.net

stacked drinking straws:

styrofoam cups and hot glue:

the way these cups are displayed you walk under it and feel like there are clouds right above your head

 

[ChrissyM]

acegallery.net

paper plates and glue:

scotch tape:

 

[ChrissyM]

adding machine paper:
(looks like an elevation map or something...)

ripped and stacked tarpaper:

acegallery.net

 

[ChrissyM]

tempered glass 35" perfect cube (held together only by friction and gravity [no glue etc]

pin cube (held together by friction and gravity

toothpick cube (held together by friction and gravity

acegallery.net, barbarakrakowgallery.com

 

[ChrissyM]

these next few things have a sort of "under the sea" feel to them...

buttons and glue:
(pretty incredible to see in real life... looks just like a coral reef and the type of buttons both clear and opaque play tricks on your eyes and sort of blur your vision.. really cool )

mylar:
(the play of light on the mylar is VERY cool in person)

fishing line:

acegallery.net, bbc.co.uk, flickr

 

[gius]

several of her works here give me jil sander vibes
her sculptures would be great installation collaborations with sander
like at their shop

thanks chrissy for all the info + pics

 

[iyemstoopid]

thank you chrissy, this is incredibly inspiring

 

[wheneveriwakeup]

I've always loved mylar...
She is very talented and I love that she uses, otherwise, mundane materials
and turns them into elegant, beautiful, organic shapes..
Ty ChrissyM!

 

[ChrissyM]

you're welcome everyone

the mylar pieces were really really cool to see in person...
the edges are all perfectly lined up so that they are all perfect half-spheres...
and the difference in size was also cool..
some of them were quite big and looked like something you would want to sit on or sink into...
luckily i resisted those urges

 

[masquerade]

omg ChrissyM thank you so much for showing me her work. I would love to see them in person, I can imagine they really come to life.

What she does seems so beautiful. She takes these ordinary, man-made items and makes these vast, organic forms out of them. It just shows that everything has the potential to be beautiful.

I am really smitten. Again, thanks

 

[birth.of.mode]

lovely....this is soo chic and contemporay...
would love to have something like her MYLAR one.. as the center piece of a living room...
amazing!

 

[strawberry daiquiri]

wow great stuff. those freestanding cubes are remarkable. I assume she has some base in science?

 

[Nixon058]

Its insane, the simplistically beautiful sculptures she can create out of everyday, ordinary objects.