Diana Shpungin
Diana Shpungin
Workspace Program Resident 2017
My residency at Dieu Donné surpassed my expectations in so many meaningful ways. Paper is a fundamental item practically everyone on earth is familiar with. Yet, at Dieu Donné the commonality of paper takes on entirely new properties. The papermaking and experimentation process is a true creative witchcraft; liquids turn to solids, heavy turns to light, pulp expands and shrinks, concepts are materialized and raw material develops into innovative forms. The paper on its own, unaided can relate the story; no marks or words are necessary.
Studio collaborator Amy Jacobs was an absolute dream to work with. I don’t think of Amy as just as a collaborator, but as an innovator and visionary who brings an artist’s idea to life with a sorcerer’s magic, the kindest demeanor, super human strength and expert ability.”
—Diana Shpungin, 2017
Diana Shpungin dedicates her artistic practice to challenging ideas of drawing through sculptural form. At Dieu Donné she was able to translate her methods, trading one ordinary material (the pencil), for another common material (paper)—essential components of a
drawing.
Themes of memory, superstition, failure and domestic decay are paired with a dash of looming optimism in the three distinct series of works created during Shpungin’s residency.
The series of works Don’t Let The Light In (White), (Stained) and (Gray) incorporate custom molds of boarded-up plywood windows, inspired by Shpungin’s earlier, monumental Drawing of A House project. The molds for these works were cast with pigmented cotton, allowing for incredible detail of the wood grain, which the artist then enhanced with touches of graphite, abaca and linen screws. Thinking about notions of an artist’s self-imposed hermetic nature, the works are displayed as boarded-up windows in the interior of a space—blocking any view, inspiration, or light. The resulting artwork is an exercise in contemplating and accepting the blockage.
In Deflective Surface, Lucky Misfortune and Negative Positive, Shpungin collected numerous broken wall mirrors (and smashed many in the studio). The broken mirrors were cast in reverse by pulling large sheets of pigmented casting cotton in varieties of gray tones and luminous silver pigment. Not one to mess with the feasibility of a superstition, Shpungin literally and figuratively made a negative a positive—absorbing the bad luck by filling the crack that caused it. The mirrors no longer allow for a reflection, they are now omens for good luck.
And lastly, creating a customized “graphite” paper from abaca, gray and silver luminous pigment, Shpungin experimented with papier-mâché applications and tragic (yet hopeful) domestic objects. One example on view, A Light From Below depicts a papier-mâché fallen chandelier still anchored to the ceiling by a linear chain with the addition of white cotton paper atop a low pedestal with a graphite pencil drawing of the chandelier’s shadow. The chandelier can still metaphorically provide light or at the very least is hopeful it will.
In the Studio
About the Artist
Diana Shpungin, born in Latvia’s seaside capital of Riga under Soviet rule, immigrated as a child to the U.S. where her family settled in New York City. She received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY and is currently an Assistant Professor at Parsons: The New School for Design in New York City.
Shpungin’s work has been exhibited extensively in both national and international venues including: The Bronx Museum of Art, Sculpture Center, Bass Museum of Art, Futura Center for Contemporary Art Prague, Tomio Koyama Gallery Tokyo, Carrousel du Louvre Paris, Invisible Exports, Marc Straus Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Shpungin’s work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, Flash Art, New York Magazine, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine and The New York Times. Her work was the subject of a recent episode of PBS’s Art Assignment, Object Empathy and was cited in the introduction of Jerry Saltz’s last book Seeing out Louder. Shpungin was awarded the 2017 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture and has previously been the recipient of awards, fellowships and residencies from The Foundation of Contemporary Art, The MacDowell Colony, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and CEC Artslink.
Diana Shpungin is a Brooklyn based multi-disciplinary artist who works in drawing, sculpture, installation, hand-drawn animation, video and sound and has been exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions in both national and international venues including: The Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY; Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson; Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL; Locust Projects, Miami, FL; Fieldgate Gallery, London, England; Futura Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic; Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, France; Invisible Exports, New York, NY; Marc Straus Gallery, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Galerie Zurcher, Paris, France; Site:Lab, Grand Rapids, MI and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT (upcoming). Shpungin’s work will be the subject of a solo exhibition at Smack Melon, Brooklyn, NY in 2022.
Shpungin was awarded the 2019/20 Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant and the 2017 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture. And has also been the recipient of awards, fellowships and residencies from The Foundation of Contemporary Art, The MacDowell Colony, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, CEC Artslink, Dieu Donne, Bronx Museum AIM Program, Art Omi and an upcoming residency at The Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections in the United States and abroad.
Shpungin’s work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, Flash Art, New York Magazine, Art in America, Art Papers, Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, Timeout New York, Zing Magazine, Bloomberg, Timeout London, Connaissance des Arts, Le Monde, The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald among others. Her work was the subject of PBS’s Art Assignment, Object Empathy and was cited in the introduction of Jerry Saltz’s book Seeing out Louder. An extensive hardcover book was published in 2016 documenting Shpungin’s monumental project, Drawing Of A House (Triptych). A new book documenting Shpungin’s solo exhibition Bright Light / Darkest Shadow, a decade of hand-drawn animation at MOCA, Tucson will be published in late 2020. (Source: Artist’s website)
For more information, please visit their website: https://dianashpungin.com