Catherine Chauvin is an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Denver, where she teaches printmaking and drawing. In recent years, her work has dealt with the Earth’s landscape – what people do to sculpt landscapes, their failure to return the landscape to its original state, and their lack of control in the battles nature wages against itself. Chauvin comments that “Obviously, [she’s] not a scientist, but an artist who hopes to use a visual forum to address concerns in a visual way.” Her pieces use meticulously drawn, repetitive shapes expressed in print in their completed versions to make a visual statement and hopefully provoke conversations about the issues Chauvin considers as she forms these representations of her ideas. In the triennial she plans to present a new piece that is evocative of a Hawaiian cloak Captain Cook received as a gift in 1778. While the original was embellished entirely with real feathers, Chauvin’s piece will replace the feathers with Post-it “feathers.” This substitution is an attempt to start discussions about the use of precious materials as opposed to more ubiquitous ones and how we view the function of crafts in society today.
To learn more about Catherine Chauvin and view more artworks, please visit www.catherinechauvin.org