Tina Lam

Artist Statement

I create sculptures, installations, land-art interventions and performances informed phylosophy, science, and literature. I am interested in the physical and metaphorical entanglements between the human, the beyond-human, and the unknown. I venture into natural environments to hand-mold black aluminum foil onto boulders, branches and root systems, collecting records of the planet’s surface as one would graze a body’s: its skin, folds, wrinkles and arteries, in constant turbulent transformation arising from its pressurized core to its uppermost continental stratas, continually scarred and mending. I further convert my land-art objects by merging them with materials ranging in translucency from paper to steel, imbuing them with silence, solace and strength. Through the slow process of touch, I commune with the physical world and the elementary forces that assail and sculpt the planet, aiming to elicit awe and meditative introspection as a means to reunite with the very same mysterious cosmic forces that shape our humanhood.

Tina Lam. Cosmic Cues: Magnetoscape Cycle 1. Sculptural installation with black alumnium foil, steel wire, Japanese paper, marble. 2024. Gallery dimensions 18.4 x 22.6 x 14.5 feet. Photo Credits Andrew Schwartz.

Bio

I was born in Montréal, Canada, and raised in urban regions by Cambodian-Chinese refugees. Since youth, I have been both fascinated and perplexed by the mysteries of the natural world; I have continued to seek to engage with them methodically through the sciences and somatically through the arts. I am a graduate of Cornell University (MFA), Concordia University (BFA) and McGill University (PhD), and received many grants including from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Quebec Council for the Arts. I have attended residencies including Shandaken: Storm King, NARS Foundation, Willapa Bay AIR, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center.

www.tinalamstudio.com

Fernanda DAgostino

Artist Statement

My interest in installation art began during a stay in Italy, where I saw art integrated with landscape, architecture, crafts, and ritual in daily life. For the first time, I understood the connection between “culture” in both its artistic and broader senses. This inspired me to recreate such immersive experiences for my viewers. In addition to sculptural works that anchor my installations, I’ve grown crops for local gleaners, made artist’s books, and constructed interactive spaces—inviting viewers to engage directly with the art. Starting as a craft artist, I still use the tactile qualities of materials to draw people in. For 25 years, I’ve used video projections to animate spaces and sculptures, imbuing them with a sense of memory. Creative coding for interactivity is now a key aspect of my practice, adding a layer of responsiveness to the environments I create.

Fernanda D'Agostino-Chrysalis-Immersive video and sound installation. 2023 Oregon Center for Contemporary Art. 35' x 25' x 22'H -Chrysalis investigates states of becoming and of ending and the mathematical processes that drive change in the natural world. Photo Credit Brian Foulkes

Bio

Fernanda D’Agostino’s internationally exhibited installations incorporate sculpture, architecture, interactive video, projection mapping and sound in novel ways. Her work engages themes of movement and growth as catalyzed by phenomena of the natural world, alchemical transformation, complex networks, and human engagement with non-human communities. Having begun her career in the 1980s as a performance artist with a focus on body work, the body and how it engages with space and objects informs all her work. Although no longer performing every installation includes a performance or other live event and often the making of the work involves performative acts by herself and/or collaborators. She continues to use prompts to initiate her own process and to provoke responses from viewers and collaborators. The connecting thread in all her work is placing viewers at the center of an all-encompassing interactive environment, in this sense the viewer becomes the performer in a “prepared environment.” D’Agostino has received fellowships and grants from the Bronson and Flintridge Foundations, NEA, Precipice Fund, and Ford Family Foundation. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Brooklyn Art Museum, SoundWave Biennial, and Virtual Venice Biennale. Her work is in major collections, including the Houston Museum.

https://fernandadagostino.com

Ana González Barragán

Artist Statement

Ana González Barragán (b. Mexico City, 1989) is an artist and researcher focused on the histories—cultural, geological, and political—of different stones and minerals. Working in obsidian, marble, and other materials with long aesthetic traditions, González Barragán creates sculptural objects and installations that explore and amplify the metaphoric potential of geologic bodies, paying careful attention to their own complex geologic histories, detectable in veins, cracks, and gradations of tone. In her practice, González Barragán also uses time-based media and oral history-taking to register the extractive (and often violent and exploitative) processes long associated with these materials, from the gender politics and labor practices of mining to the ecological impacts of industrial capitalism. This extensive research and documentation is conducted on-site, in locations that include Sierra de las Navajas, Mexico, and Marble, Colorado.

Ana González Barragán_Unearthing_White Yule Marble, Hydraulic Table_2023

Bio

Ana holds a BA in Furniture and Product Design from CENTRO University; among her recent exhibitions are Material Art Fair with Janet40, Mexico (2019); Zona Maco in Sample Booth, Mexico (2019); SWAB Art Fair, Barcelona (2019);  Momoroom (2020); and Salon Cosa (2021). She was recently commissioned a public art installation for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and is now pursuing an MFA in Sculpture and Post-Studio Practice at the University of Colorado Boulder.

anagonzalezbarragan.info