CHIAOZZA

Bento Boxes

This series is inspired by bento boxes and culls together curios and ephemera from our studio practice over the years. Found objects like shells, rocks, and gum wads are arranged next to bits of studio experiments, sculptures, and scraps. Collected together in painted compartments scaled to the objects within, the items tell a story of the studio’s inspirations, process, and inner workings not often glimpsed outside our studio. Each piece comes with a lid and a diagram describing the objects within each compartment.

Bouquet Paintings

The Bouquet Paintings emerge from years of exploring and abstracting the forms of plants, flowers, and vessels in our sculptural work. In this series of paintings on linen, we play with the graphic space of the picture plane, in which bulbous floral forms push at the edges of the rectangular frame, and negative and positive space are equally weighted in the construction of the composition. Oftentimes these paintings embrace both the bloom and the droop of life, celebrating the exuberance of being alive as well as the uniquities evidenced by life lived.

Floating Wooden Wall Works

The floating wooden wall works cast halos of reflected color onto surrounding surfaces. Different sides of the wooden pieces hold different colors, and as a viewer moves around the artwork, the color perception shifts, creating multiple color experiences within one work.

Meandering Colorful Paths

Segments of multi-colored meandering curves pieced end to end form a continuous winding line and remind us of the diverse moments and unexpected paths that compose a life. Squiggles, wiggles, arcs, and bends meander across a page, a wall, or a room, echoing the path of an exploratory thought, the shape of a brain fold, the line of a tangle, the calm in a slow walk, the inevitable gathering of entropy.

Paper Pulp Sculpture

Paper pulp has been an essential part of our studio practice for nearly a decade, stemming from a love of paper's tactility, versatility, accessibility, and plant origins. Forms are often inspired by plant growth, geology, and the art of suiseki, the philosophical and aesthetic practice of stone appreciation.

Pulp Paintings

The Pulp Paintings are a series of relief paintings constructed using paper pulp applied and mounted to wooden frames. Paper pulp has been an essential part of our studio practice for nearly a decade, stemming from a love of paper's tactility, versatility, and accessibility. We create our own paper pulp from recycled paper collected from various sources, including neighboring photography studios' discarded backdrop paper rolls. Some compositions are constructed by debossing or embossing the surface and/or armature, and the paper pulp surface becomes a palette for collecting color. Other compositions are created using cut pieces of wood to which paper pulp is applied and then painted. The backs of the paintings are painted in fluorescent colors that reflect off the wall behind the artwork, giving a faint halo of color to each painting that shifts as the light shifts throughout a day.

Shrines to Nothingness

These painted paper pulp wall works hold space for contemplation and being. Appearing like a small shelf, the horizontal surface of each piece is painted in a fluorescent color that casts an ethereal glow across the wall behind it. These pieces emerge from a desire for holding space for nothingness, for passing meditations, memories, wishes, and simply existing.

Wooden Wall Works

In this series, painted wooden planks are lap-joined together to create an open-cell wall work. Paint on the faces of each wooden piece reflects onto the wall, casting halos of color within each "cell" of the painting. What we see on the wall is reflected color. Different sides of the wooden pieces hold different colors, and as a viewer moves around the artwork, the color perception shifts, creating multiple color experiences within one work.