Artists That Inspire Me: Tara Donovan

Probably the best art exhibit I have ever been to in the Tara Donovan exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston (Oct. 10, 2008 – January 4, 2009).  I planned a trip down especially to see the show, and was blown away.  She is brilliant, and even won the MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2008.

She works by repeating patterns of every day objects, usually through sculpture and installation work.   Items she’s worked with include toothpicks, buttons, Styrofoam cups, sewing pins, paper plates, and many more.  These items will be repeated hundreds and even thousands of times over and over again, connected by glue or gravity, to create beautiful new forms and patterns.    The original source object is no longer recognizable on first pass.

Untitled Rubber Band Print by Tara Donovan, 2006

I was first introduced to her work about a year before the show, when a professor used one of her rubber band prints as an illustration in class.  She would create a matrix of by gluing together rubber bands in a repeating pattern, then print the relief.  It definitely had an impact of my art making, which can be most clearly seen in my “Blue Blazes” prints  but is less obvious in other “Pattern and Path”  series work (http://www.rachelchurch.net/#ppgallery) which plays with the idea of repeating and combining everyday patterns and textures to create something beautiful.  A few moth later on  trip with USM’s group, the Community of Arts, to the ICA in Boston, I got to see that same print as part of their permanent collect.  It was then I also learned about the Oct. 2008 Tara Donovan show, and stated making plans to return.

If you are interested in seeing her work or reading more, I suggest the ICA’s website, as well as the Ace Gallery site which has an excellent collection of images of her work:

http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/exhibit/donovan/

http://www.acegallery.net/artistmenu.php?Artist=8

Of course, if you get the opportunity to see her work in person, particularly her large-scale installations, there is nothing that compares.