Ava Blitz: Re-Making the Landscape

RE-MAKING THE LANDSCAPE:
THE ART AND SCIENCE
OF AVA BLITZ

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I enjoy exploring the dualities of the physical, elemental state of nature, and the spiritual, metaphoric, and contemplative nature. I am intrigued by the mysterious similarity of structures, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, found in biology, botany, geology, and anthropology. My work is symbolic of the cycles of life, of the elements, and of the forces of growth, change, and evolution. It alludes to the passage of time, petrified in stone or concrete. Lines become blurred and distinctions ambiguous between fossil and artifact, natural history and cultural history, and the present, past and future.

The evolution of my body of work seems to reflect the growth/decay/renewal process found in nature. It has evolved through the creation of multiples and series, to the fragmentation and breaking down of forms, to the building of new 'symbiotic' relationships between unrelated sculptures, and the recycling of old forms for new purposes.

I often use the earth to create molds for casting sculpture. I am also interested in using the earth as a container or vessel for sculpture, which on a large scale creates an architectural space. I have developed sculptural forms that use traditional building methods, such as shingling, masonry, tiling, and paving, using modular units that are sculptures or fragments of sculptures, instead of bricks and tiles. Recent experiments include digging and forming earth, lining surfaces, filling cavities, and floating/sinking forms. Light is often part of the poetry, as is a sense of humor, surprise, inappropriateness, and/or delight. Capturing the transformation of weather, light, and wind, and the reclamation of nature, is also of interest.

I have created many site-specific installations that react to both interior and exterior spaces, urban, suburban, and rural. My current work in stone, cement, and light, cross-references concepts in printmaking, sculpture, architecture, and landscape architecture. By using multiples and groups of sculpture in an installation, I can command a larger space without sacrificing an intimate, human scale. These installations create pathways, and direct movement through space.

Cooking Up A Storm (2006)
12 Lancaster Avenue, Ardmore PA
Temporary Installation
Cookware, bicycle bearings
Dimensions: 12x6x6'

Beauty and the Beast (2002)
Appel Farm Arts and Music Center
Elmer, NJ
Concrete, pigment, light
Dimensions: Units 5x1x1', Pit 30x3'

Floating World (1998)
University City Science Center
36th and Market Streets
Philadelphia PA
1% commission in conjunction with the
Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority
Glass fiber reinforced cement, pigment
Variable dimensions

Seeds of Memory
Sculpture Garden (1994)
Japan Foundation/TAMA
Hinode Metropolitan Government
International Artists Facility, Tokyo
Basalt
Dimensions: 28x35x24", 44x20x34"

ARTIST'S BIOGRAPHY

Ava Blitz is a visual artist who currently divides her time between studio work, public art, and adjunct teaching. From 1986 to 1998 she was Associate Lecturer and Fine Arts Program Director at Bryn Mawr College. Blitz's recent public works and commissions include Beauty & the Beast at Appel Farm Arts and Music Center, NJ, Floating World at the University City Science Center, created under the auspices of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority 1% for Art Program, and Seeds of Memory in Tokyo, Japan.

Ava Blitz served on an International Sculpture Symposium panel in Japan, and has lectured on public art for the American Institute of Architects, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Michener Art Museum. She has been the recipient of numerous honors, awards, and fellowships, many of which have funded her public art projects. These include grants from the Japan Foundation, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Leeway Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. She has exhibited in public parks and plazas, numerous sculpture parks, and at the Philadelphia International Airport. Most recently, she installed a major piece of public art at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ. Ava Blitz has shown locally at the Michener Art Museum, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Noyes Museum, the Sculpture Garden at Trenton Plaza, and the Allentown Art Museum.

ARTIST'S RESUME

Serendip is a web site devoted to a sort of science education that is playful, exploratory, self-directed, and generative of the new. Among its offerings has been extensive web support for the discovery of unexpected intersections between science and society, science in culture, and science and art. The artistic creations of Ava Blitz are particularly striking representations of the latter.

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Exhibit layout by Ava Blitz and
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