Author: dshpungin

In her exhibition The Answer Is Nature, interdisciplinary artist Diana Shpungin presents a poetic investigation into the interconnectedness of memory, material, and the natural world.

Always Begin At The End uses common iconography to address loss, memory, empathy and failure between the private and public, personal and political spheres. The exhibition may serve as a pseudo-archive of objects who’s symbolic meanings and functional uses occupy an integral place in the interior of the cultural mind as well as the interior of the personal.

A site-responsive performance created in collaboration with a classically trained ballet dancer and featuring an original experimental score and custom-designed costume inspired by the sculpture and themes present in the exhibition Always Begin At The End. The choreography hints at a confusion, a sort of double-entendre of the sublime wavering between fear and redemption

A selection of cardboard boxes are hand-coated in graphite and hung ominously on a backing of roof paper alongside small assemblages of packing materials referring to our often forced or unintended commercial dependency

A standard issue American flag is dissected and coated by hand in graphite pencil and silver pigment

A graphite abaca paper balloon with a graphite coated ribbon terminating in a sickle hung unceremoniously on the wall

A sandblasted wooden chair is coated in graphite and adorned with glazed porcelain sponges. Beneath the chair are glass vitrines filled with hand-turned pencil shavings hinting at the objects impossible uses and arbitrary relationships

A section of chain link fencing and traditional still-life objects are hand-coated in graphite pencil in an ominous cornucopia

Two paper cast doors with hand-drawn wood grain pencil drawings are placed mirroring each other on a pile of marble rocks

A plaster cast of the artist’s hand coated in graphite with a graphite-coated pencil protruding from the wall referencing the five finger fillet game of risk

A typical set of domestic window blinds are hand-veneered in graphite abaca paper, disheveled, and punctuated with multiple large quartz crystals referencing misguided love and protest alike

A vintage turntable, with a vinyl record is coated in graphite pencil and spins periodically. Placed atop the record is a large conch shell filled with concrete and a cast human skeletal finger which points tentatively outward

Graphite is hand-applied on a chain link fence in which hang clusters of artificial grapes with graphite-coated leaves

Two paper bags are hand coated in graphite pencil and filled with concrete and American pennies and dimes

Plaster-bandage covered buckets are filled with rocks and concrete and pierced with a graphite coated arrow. Protruding from the makeshift pedestal is a graphite and wax coated tiki torch with an artificial graphite coated pineapple beside it.

A cast drawn-on and bandaged skeletal leg and foot hangs over a prayer stand which is entirely coated in graphite pencil. A double-sided mirror bisects the leg and stand, separating a deflated football from hundreds of stacked bars of ivory soap

A minimalist display of pencils given out as gifts to exhibition visitors, The silver pencils are custom printed with the exhibition title which disappears as the pencil is used

A floor-placed monitor displays a hand drawn animation which flickers on an endless loop beneath two large stones, one of howlite and one of obsidian, arbitrarily preventing the universes’ demise

Two wooden chairs with broken-off legs are hand-coated in graphite and stacked atop each other, held together with ace bandages. Between them they hold graphite-soaked sponges

Two folding chairs with plaster bandages and graphite are adorned with shells.  One chair has natural snail shells clinging to its underside while the other has shells which have been drawn on in a poor attempt at replicating the pattern of the converse group of shells

A marble floor is laid out in a grid-like pattern as an exhibition platform on which the majority of the other works rest, referencing an archeological dig and/or archive

A public sculptural work comprised of various salvaged components and two fabricated steel truss structures, with the entirety of their surfaces painstakingly hand-drawn in graphite pencil, functions as a ceremonial metaphor for loss and empathy.

Figures in landscapes, proceed and recede in vast diverse settings meditating on the idea of controlling our natural surroundings in the wake of global environmental catastrophes.

an abstracted celestial sky scape that fluctuates through numerous changes, drawings were exposed to light, water, fire, puncturing and generalized destruction in a metaphorical yet futile attempt to obliterate the universe.

A solo exhibition at MOCA displaying a decade of hand-drawn animation works consisting of literally thousands of original source drawings shown in several distinct gallery spaces of the museum.

a minimalist display of pencils with a heat sensitive coating that turns from dark to light which museum visitors are encouraged to receive as a gift

A cartoonish drawing of a hand made by our 45th president is copied and erased in a simultaneously taxing and cathartic task

Taking inspiration from historical Vanitas still life painting, a three-channel, hand-drawn pencil animation depicts these icons in contemporaneous settings with a meditative sound composition allowing for contemplation.

a vacant house is entirely encased by hand in graphite pencil and converted into a community participatory work, massive sculpture and dimensional drawing with multiple hand-drawn window animations that explore narratives related to domestic themes embedded in the historical memory of the space.

a vacant house is entirely encased by hand in graphite pencil and converted into a community participatory work, massive sculpture and dimensional drawing with multiple hand-drawn window animations that explore narratives related to domestic themes embedded in the historical memory of the space.

a massive pile of potatoes is stacked as homage to Malevich compositional forms in a public square in St. Petersburg, Russia and given out along with bags printed with the artist’s father’s recipe and story of survival in black market culture during soviet times.

part drawing, part sculpture, a fallen papier-mâché chandelier sits atop a pencil rendering of its own shadow

direct solid paper castings of cracked mirrors are literally and figuratively made negative to positive, absorbing the bad luck by filling the fissure that caused it.

boarded up plywood windows cast in solid paper are materially transformed, transcending their initial purpose and displayed in the interior of a space, blocking any view, inspiration or light.

drawing paper is heavily coated with graphite pencil, layered with various pattered drawings, and torn in an exercise of self-reflexive defeat

the animation depicts an ambiguous ocean beach scene with an elusive dark silhouette getting washed ashore and pulled back out by the tide in an endless cyclical turn of events, only to perpetually exist in a drawing.

a graphite coated piece of drawing paper is crushed by a graphite coated brick and quite aware and celebratory of its failure.

nothings, refers to the term as both the standard use meaning as inconsequential conversation, informal exchange of ideas and/or an expression of affection as well as “nothing(s)” as the readily overlooked, its meaning obscured or not immediately obvious.

a graphite coated wooden broom is broken at its base as it sweeps multiple glazed shards of broken and glazed ceramic

a woven trashcan and sheets of paper are methodically encased in graphite pencil, this drawing action conceals what may have been originally discernible.

a dried dead rose, bound in medical tape and hand coated completely in graphite pencil is unceremoniously attached to the wall with medical tape as a ghostly memento of a fractured memory.

a minimal hand drawn rendering depicts curtain fabric blowing gently in the wind in a meditative exercise referencing and as homage to the late Cuban American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

a hand drawn animation where drawing paper is covered heavily with graphite pencil then illuminated to reveal the light within the dark void.

many hazy stain-like graphite drawings compile an animation revealing obscure imagery, encompassing the common human phenomenon of pareidolia to see things when they perhaps are/aren’t there.

sheets of paper are coated in graphite pencil and crumpled up, creating a permanent mark of failure

what may at first seem mysterious, ominous, or even paranormal in this hand drawn animation, becomes more rooted in a self-reflexive absurdity.

a hand drawn animation referring to our general diminutive position on earth and how things are not quite as they often seem on the surface.

a hand drawn animation conveying ideas to nurture and injure as well as an uncanny supernatural act of redemption.

a delicate abstract animation reveals a skeptical vantage point and thoughts of pessimism in an otherwise ethereal luminous space.

a minimal ambiguous narrative points to ideas of the domestic transitional space, hinting at the myriad of possibilities that a dwelling can inhabit.

an animation with relatively sparse occurrence, relays solitary themes of existence and an unspoken secret knowledge.

a fly sits on a broken tree limb coated in graphite pencil and plaster gauze, a drawing of the phantom limb accompanies it

a three channel video that functions as an elaborate exercise in fate tempting

a rose encased in graphite hangs on the wall by way of medical tape, in a unmonumental gesture of remembrance