Prints
About
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."
“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.”
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Tara Donovan creates large-scale installations and sculptures made from everyday objects. Known for her commitment to process, she has earned acclaim for her ability to discover the inherent physical characteristics of an object and transform it into art. Donovan’s many accolades include the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Award (2008); and first annual Calder Prize (2005), among others. For over a decade, numerous museums have mounted solo exhibitions of Donovan’s work including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2007-2008), UCLA Hammer Museum (2004), and Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1999-2000). Donovan’s work appears in numerous public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
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1969 Born in New York; Currently lives and works in Brooklyn
EDUCATION
1987-1988
Attends School of Visual Arts, New York
1991
Corcoran College of Art and Design, Washington, DC, BFA
1999
Virginia Commonwealth University, MFA
The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant
2001
The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant
2003
Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial Sculpture Fellowship
New York Foundation for the Arts Grant
2004
Women's Caucus for Art, Presidential Award
National Academy Museum, Helen Foster Barnett Prize
American Academy of Arts and Letters, Metcalf AwardSOLO EXHIBITIONS
2006
New Work, Pace Wildenstein, New York, NY
2004
Akira Ikeda Gallery, Berlin
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Project Room: Glass Cube, Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills
Hammer Projects, Arm and Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles
The Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial, Cornish, NH
2003
Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
Drawings, Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art, Cleveland
Rice University Gallery, Houston
IBM Building, New York
2001
Colony, Ace Gallery, New York
Ace Gallery, Los Angeles
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI
2000
Ace Gallery, Los Angeles
1999
Hemicycle Gallery, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington
1998
New Sculpture, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond
Resonances, Hemphill Fine Arts, WashingtonGROUP EXHIBITIONS
2006
Some Kind of Wonderful: Recent Sculpture by James O. Clark and Tara Donovan, Maier Museum of Art/Randolph Macon Women's College, Lynchburg, VA
2005
Distillation to Complication: 40 Years of Rule Based Art, Pace Wildenstein, New York
Selected Saint-Gaudens Fellows, USB Paine Webber Gallery, New York
Summer Group Show, Pace Wildenstein, New York, NY
2004
Drawings, Plane Space, New York
179th Annual, National Academy Museum, New York
Cleanliness, Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York
Invitational Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
2003
Off the Beaten Track: Contemporary Landscapes, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, MA
Bits and Pieces, DUMBO Art Center, New York
Under Pressure, Cooper Union, New York
2002
Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greesnboro
Fictions in Wonderland, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA
Accumulation, Clifford Smith Gallery, Boston
Print Matters: New Works and Modern Treasures, Virginia Museum of Art, Richmond
2000
Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Summer'00 New Prints, David Adamson Gallery, Washington, DC
1999
Fresh Meat, Kim Foster Gallery, New York
1997
What's Hot, Baumgartner Galleries, Washington, DC
Relief print from pin matrix
31.75 x 31.75 inches
Edition of 30
$9,000 unframed