Catching Up

This is a long overdue blog post! This semester has been a major whirlwind. The first half was dedicated to writing my thesis, and in theory- the second half was to produce new work. In practice about 50% of my time has been put towards new work. With the other half of my time I have been working on my artist talk for the final residency  as well as searching/applying for jobs and exhibition opportunities. I recently was accepted into the Boston Young Contemporaries 2013 exhibition, so things are going in the right direction!



About the work: I started off with making some loose sketches and watercolor paintings inspired by the geometry of With/in/Between (see website: www.ndaviau.weebly.com). These are not intended to be "perfect finished pieces" but rather studies in which I can examine my ideas and see what pops up.  Here are three of about 30, I spared your eyes the more boring ones.

 I have been experimenting with the plastic material as well as some amazing plastic-like blueprint/graph paper that i found dumpster diving in my undergrad days (Westchester has the best "trash").  The plastic graph "paper" reacts differently than the plastic bag material. It bubbles up quite a bit and does not tear or wrinkle. I like the distortion of the neat two dimensional graph into a three dimensional bubble. This continues the tension that i began exploring in the cube pieces and fully examined in my thesis. I am presently making a bunch of these forms out of 2" x 2" squares i cut out along the grid and then heat gun. Despite being the same size and shape they all turn out completely different when heated. These will be displayed in a grid.

2" x 2" grid detail

side view of 2" x 2" grid

2" x2" grid thus far in the process

 4" wide x 6 " tall (view looking down)

 8" x 8"  square

I also explored the plastics ability to withstand the environment. Over the weekend I created a structure out of fallen branches and wrapped it in the plastic. It was really difficult to create it with the wind which made the heat dissipate much quicker and blew the plastic around while i was working on it.  After  a huge thunderstorm and 60 mph winds it came apart on the top a bit and i decided to rethink the project. however that has not stopped my child from moving into it (complete with chair) and enjoying the cocoon like space.  To give scale, the structure is about 8 feet tall, the branches are about 9-10 feet high each of the three branches are at the point of a triangle that spans roughly 5 feet from point to point.
      I am interested in further exploring the uses of the plastic material in combination with the natural setting. To be continued....