Greg Kucera Gallery

Tara Donovan builds large, labor-intensive, and site-specific installations out of everyday materials such as scotch tape, drinking straws, paper plates, roofing paper and Styrofoam cups. Donovan takes these materials and "grows" them through accumulation. The results are large-scale abstract floor and wall works suggestive of landscapes, clouds, cellular structures and even mold or fungus. In her words, "it is not like I'm trying to simulate nature. It's more of a mimicking of the way of nature, the way things actually grow."

Installation View

UNTITLED (pin cube), 2007
Pins
45 x 45 x 45 inches
SOLD

Detail of UNTITLED (pins), 2007

Detail of UNTITLED (pins), 2007

UNTITLED (paper plates), 2003
Paper plates and glue
22.75 x 53 x 51 inches
POR

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TOOTHPICKS, 2001
Toothpicks
30 x 24 x 24 inches
SOLD

UNTITLED (paper plates), 2003
Paper plates and glue
8 x 14 x 10 inches
SOLD

Unique Works on Paper

UNTITLED (bubbles), 2004
Ink on foamboard
47.5 x 53 inches
SOLD

UNTITLED, 2004
Unique etching on paper
13 x 13 inches
$7,500
SOLD

Prints

When printing her etchings, Tara Donovan wanted to approximate the techniques she uses in her own studio to create her large scale unique pieces. Ferric chloride solution, an etching corrosive, was combined with liquid bubble soap. Tara used a straw to blow air into this mixture making different size bubbles that she carefully picked up with a plastic spoon and laid on the aquatinted plates. The bubbles were left on the plates until they popped or dissolved, allowing the ferric chloride to etch the surface of the plate.

When Tara completed the process of applying bubbles to each plate, the acid residue and rosin were cleaned off the plate and then printed. The variety of dark to light bubble images was achieved by controlling the saturation of liquid in each bubble. Each edition was made by printing each plate twice. First in a light blue and then printing slightly off register in black to create the illusion that the bubbles are floating off the paper.
- Pace Prints

UNTITLED (RUBBER BANDS - spiral), 2006
38.5 x 26 inches
Printed from rubber bands, Ed/35
$6,000

UNTITLED (RUBBER BANDS - coil), 2006
38.5 x 26 inches
Printed from rubber bands, Ed/35
$6,000

DETAIL of UNTITLED (RUBBER BANDS - coil), 2006

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UNTITLED, 2005 Etching 32 x 32 inches Image area: 29.5 x 29.75 inches Ed/35 $4,500.	UNTITLED, 2004 Etching 18 x 18 inches Image area: 16 x 16 inches Ed/25 $3,500.