Tara Donovan

Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of screen drawings by Tara Donovan at its East Hampton gallery.

The presentation spotlights a new body of work made with aluminum insect screen. The works in the exhibition can be understood as an extension of Donovan’s gridded relief prints, which the artist showed in her solo exhibition with Pace in New York in 2021.

Donovan’s East Hampton exhibition features 22 screen drawings of various scales, ranging from just over a foot in height and width to nearly four feet wide and tall. For these works, which Donovan began creating during the pandemic, the artist moves, pinches, and cuts the wires of the aluminum insect screen to extract shapeshifting, mesmeric patterns from the material’s existing grids. Donovan took a new approach to each featured screen drawing, using a mathematical methodology to explore the phenomenological possibilities of the material.

These screen drawings reflect Donovan’s longstanding interest in human perception and her ability to transform everyday objects into talismanic, mutable works of art. The varied patterns in the artist’s screen drawings shift depending on the viewer’s position to them—these subtle changes lend the works a digital quality. Each screen drawing in the exhibition produces unique visual effects that conjure unexpected associations.

Tara Donovan’s large-scale installations, sculptures, drawings, and prints utilize everyday objects to explore the transformative effects of accumulation and aggregation. By identifying and exploiting the usually overlooked physical properties of modest, mass-produced goods, Donovan creates ethereal works that challenge our perceptual habits and preconceptions.