Wednesday, February 25, 2009

overlooked remnants


I have recently had the most lovely online correspondence with the photographer Stacey Renee Morrison and she drew my attention to the interesting art of Elizabeth Duffy.


Duffy states:
In my work themes of transience and transformation resurface in objects and drawings made with labor-intensive methods. My sources are things we use in our daily routines: the overlooked remnants of our lives. Business envelopes, cleaning products, lint, and office supplies are accumulated and manipulated to bring out their alternate lives and to draw attention to what we use and discard. I have always lived in urban settings and my neighborhood has been my art store. In its dollar stores, hardware and stationery stores I seek qualities in materials their usual employment belies. Maps have become webs, straws beehives, pencils haystacks.

I love work that alludes to and uses the everyday object. For me the everyday is the most beautiful moment we can be in. So I really like her approach to materials. A lot of her work leads me to think of other artists that I admire too.


Her envelopes:

remind me of a series that my graduate professor, Shona MacDonald did, where she "painted" with the inside of envelopes (the place where you lick or seal):


Elizabeth's sculptures:



call to mind artists such as:
Eva Hesse-
and Tara Donovan-
I always find it interesting which artists one thinks off while looking at another artist. I have never thought of Tara Donovan and Eva Hesse together before but being inspired by Elizabeth's work I seeing stunning similarity between their work.

Needless to say Elizabeth's work is very interesting and made my brain turn this morning. I only wish her website had a little more explanation to her installations...but you all now I like my web info. Forgive me.

2 comments:

RosieK said...

What a great post - I loved Elizabeth's work and had a look at her website (yes more process stuff would have been good!) - I agree with you in terms of links to Eva Hesse (one of my favorite artists) and Tara Donovan (more recently discovered!) Thank you for sharing this

Joetta M. said...

glad I could inspire and find artists that do.
best-jo