Emily Donovan

  • BIO

    Emily Donovan loves to travel, but her heart belongs to Minnesota. The state's North Woods, rural farm lands and the cycle of the seasons are both influential and essential to her art.  Having grown up learning about specialized tools and craft methods from her father, who built custom etching and lithography presses (Wepplo Press), Donovan studied art with an emphasis in printmaking and painting. Her current body of work focuses on creating color from plant-based pigments.   These colors may begin by growing natural materials.  For example, Donovan grows Japanese Indigo on a large-scale each summer to use in her work.   Other sources for color include foraging and finding other sources.  Each color process often has an interesting history or tradition that is shared by cultures worldwide.  Her process of hand dyeing creates what she calls a "living mark," tracking the movement and infusion of her pigments into paper fibers.

Emily Donovan
Emily Donovan
Emily Donovan
Emily Donovan

Artist Statement

I use a wide variety of materials to create intricate and highly detailed sculptures and installations. Many of my pieces are made up of hundreds and often thousands of individually handmade components. Transforming and expanding the potential of conventional materials, such as liquid adhesives, glass, plastics, and metal beyond their intended purpose, is a consistent focus in my work. Discovering the new possibilities of a material and how they might enhance a specific message or idea is an integral part of my process.

With the use of tiny details and subtle messages, I like to invite people to look past the obvious and engage them in close observation. Ideally, making a visual statement that will spark conversation and mark a social or political point in time. Current events, contradiction and collection, and the natural world are the influences that shape my work. Sometimes, my pieces form organically. Other times, they are planned in advance and highly structured. I use disparate methods and creative disciplines in order to make each piece a unique technical challenge. This also allows me to convey the beauty I feel variety can add to art and the everyday world.