Tara Donovan: Pins
Garvey Simon Art Access is proud to present: Tara Donovan: Pins from September 10 to October 15, 2011.

These relief prints, made from countless inked pin heads on paper seem like a departure from the large, site-specific installations for which she is best known. Yet, the pins - as objects in her work - were used early on in her oeuvre as the building blocks of her “cube” sculptures (as were toothpicks and broken glass).

In her relief prints, Tara Donovan implements the same techniques of accumulation via disposable, everyday materials to create organic abstractions. The results are suggestive of landscapes, clouds and cellular structures. 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.”

The pin matrix relief prints were created by placing a piece of foam core over a thin metal plate. The artist then pushed straight pins in the foam core to create the matrix with the end result being thousands of pinheads sticking up slightly from the foam core. A large roller is then used to ink the tops of the pins. The plate is then placed in an hydraulic press with a moist piece of paper on top and an impression is made which creates the final image.

The recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in 2008, Tara Donovan has had solo exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Cincinnati and Des Moines Art Center and the Indianapolis Museum of Art to name only a few.

Born in 1969, Tara Donovan lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.