In keeping with my interest in compulsive, repetitive artwork I somehow came across Nava Lubelski. I can’t remember where I found her work as she was a recent bookmark but regardless I’m glad I did.
Nava works largely with thread or paper on canvas or freestanding. Her artist statement does more than most in explaining her work in that she says, “I juxtapose rapid acts of destruction, such as spilling and cutting, with painstaking, restorative labor. Embroideries are hand-stitched over stains and rips, contrasting the accidental with the meticulous, constructing narrative from randomness and mistake.”
To me, the above two works appeal to my biological interests — they look like exploding cells or diseased, growing dishes of something awful but beautiful at the same time.
These thread in canvas works show Nava’s attention to detailed reconstruction and the disregard for how long one piece may take to make. In keeping with that idea, Nava also works with paper that represents events or items that will take much time or thought to put back together.
The above, Tax File, is all shredded paper and glue — I can only imagine the immediacy of the shredding being then undone by the commitment to rebuilding the file in a new way in this amoebic work of art. The detail is below.
Similar to the tax file is her work called, Rejection Letters, I imagine these could be both of the literary or emotional kind — both potentially worth a good shred.
These are also fairly reminiscent of Tara Donovan’s works with tape and mylar.
