Examples from the series Artifacts of the Self-Made (2010, etching, silkscreen and photoetching on Gampi paper) and Escape from Wandering (2010, etching, photoetching, silkscreen, assemblage on Gampi paper).
The work of Elizabeth D’Agostino delves into notions of longing, human interaction, acclimation, and how the environment begins to inform each of these. D’Agostino explores how relationships in space and structure can be re-purposed to create new narratives, modified by their own characteristics and surroundings.
For several years, she has examined human interaction and the adjustment by an organism to environmental and physical change. The areas of entomology and botany and elements or creatures such as birds, insects, and broken fragments of organic elements, remind her of familial sites and surroundings, both past and present. She continues to document and display details of growth and many of these elements are drawn through the imagination, producing new oddities of growth, objects of curiosity and hybridized forms of nature.
In her work, elements are displayed within complex settings as delicate curiosities where the natural world connects with the human-made world. Human artifacts, human bodies, insects, vegetable and animal life fascinate D’Agostino because they are all born out of nature, but are constantly being influenced and modified by culture, space, and environment. Components that adhere to particular landscapes and specific facets of nature are interwoven into new settings and are repeated within each composition. These are often patterns that are affected by continual growth and change, and are frequently featured as backdrops or motifs printed onto paper. Simplified and symbolized objects reflect both a familiar and odd presence within the work as they reference a connection with the natural world, but also an unconnected relationship with one another.
For more information on Elizabeth D’Agostino, and for further examples of her work, please visit her web site.