HIGHLY COMMENDED
This is Donna’s third time as a finalist in Paper on Skin. In 2016 Donna opened our show with the striking Armadillo, and in 2020 she was awarded the Awagami Paper Award for The Shedding. The Shedding is a powerful meditation on the various phases of a woman’s life.
With The heat is in our hands, Donna has shifted her focus to an environmental theme:
‘I have visually represented the process of coral bleaching and expressed a cry for help in order to raise awareness and encourage discussion. We as humans can make small changes in decreasing our greenhouse emissions to slow down the effects of global warming and help the survival of our reefs.
The piece is a full body suit to shine a light - that this is a human issue. We as humans hold the power to help curb global warming by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, which, in turn may reduce the rising water temperatures and help slow down the effect of coral bleaching.’ From Artist’s Statement (edited).
Donna has three small children, so finding the time to work on her labour-intensive pieces is a Olympic-worthy achievement. Regarding the making, Donna says: ‘The process of meditative hand weaving produced the body suit. As the suit was growing into its form, it was no way perfectly structured and tightly weaved. My weaving was affected by my surroundings, time of day or night and limitations of time.
The growth of the organically weaved suit was to be a pure reflection of how the corals react and change due to the environment.
With no perfection in mind or set in stone plan, the body suit grew organically. 2 holes on each side of the waist and the two holes on the navel, organically became the main functionality feature to fasten my garment on the model.
The two holes at the front simultaneously became paramount in the design, to represent the emerging bleached coral stems emerging from the human form.’
Materials: 1000 metres Raw paper raffia, 25 metres raw paper raffia, braided ribbon, 60 metres white paper raffia, 65 paper straws, masking tape, spray paint
Donna on INSTAGRAM