Tatiana Sky

Lives and works in Chicago, IL

Artist statement

Across mediums such as concrete, paper pulp, ceramics, cast metal and salvaged architectural fragments, my sculptures appear to originate from the same universe or the same soil. These blobby forms appear like calcified mud, fossilized in place by an unseen magic that has left their wobbling limbs motionless, and often with a glimmering silvery residue. Subtle signs of life remain, like the sputtering of a fountain or forms that appear to be growing toward the sunlight. In recent work, I have been reconstituting waste from Chicago’s flower market, diverting the chemically-altered, inorganic plant-material from the landfill and turning it into paper pulp. Invigorated by our present moment’s urgency, my sculptures underscore the ways social ethics are inscribed into our landscape. Gardens are central to my work as spaces of poetic possibility where rediscovery, healing and critical engagement with the more-than-human world can surface. Recalling a plant that has fused with a nearby fence, I create hybridized forms that merge organic abstraction with found ornamental scrap metal. In doing so, I reimagine a fantasy garden where people communed with plant-life. Making work on a dying planet has deepened my interest in reforming human-environment connections, beginning with the creation of an enchanted sculpture garden.

Artwork