RESTORATIVE NATURE
CHRISTINA MASSEY, ARTIST
Nature acts as a representative aspect of my otherwise abstract work. Plant-like sculptures and “foliage” appear throughout my work, with clear references to flowers, plants, and overgrown vines that exhibit as individual works and installations. Upon close inspection, the materials reveal texts and bar codes as evidence of their consumer origins.
My sculptures are surreal, almost alien-like, otherworldly plant forms with bulbous blown glass centers, constrained by copper forms that serve as corsets restricting the growth of the glass. I view the glass as symbolic of Nature itself, which grows and expands despite these constraints, adapting and altering its path according to the obstructions in its way. The copper is symbolic of the obstacles that can detour the path, but like a tree that grows around a fence, there is a beauty in the defiance and persistence to thrive.
The foliage is made primarily from aluminum cans, repurposed wire, plastics and fabrics. The aluminum is painted in acrylics, often embellishing the existing patterns on the cans allowing selected texts and imagery to emphasize the work's meaning. Many of the cans have language or texts within them inspired by New York, and specifically added for their iconography that depicts aspects of city life. Cans were chosen for their depictions of cityscapes, taxi’s, metro cards, and bodegas to be discovered within the installation.
Inspired by Nature’s ability to adapt, respond and rebound, my work imagines a potential future and focuses on the ability to overcome, thrive and the healing power of Nature.
ARTIST BIO
Christina Massey is a mixed media artist using repurposed materials in her colorful organic abstractions based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has won multiple awards: an FST StudioProject Fund Grant 2019, Brooklyn Arts Fund Grants 2022 & 2019, SIP Fellowship at the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop 2017 and Puffin Foundation Grant 2018. Massey’s work is in the collections of the Janet Turner Museum, Art Bank Collection in DC, Bank of America Collection in Miami, Credit Suisse and multiple private collections. Her work has shown extensively at galleries and museums in the NY metropolitan region and been featured in fairs such as the 14C Art Fair and Springbreak Art Show. Massey is the founder of the WoArtBlog, a platform highlighting the work of contemporary female identifying artists. Her curatorial projects have shown at such locations as the Pelham Art Center, BioBAT Artspace, Hunterdon Museum and Court Tree Collective.
ARTISTIC PROCESS
Repurposing:
Aluminum cans are collected from the artist's home, apartment building, local businesses, individual donors and the streets. The cans are then washed out and cut open in a variety of ways using a box cutter and scissors. Often the top and bottom of the cans are removed and the body of the can is cut into strips that later get woven together with wire or added to sculptures as large leaf-like foliage.
Sometimes the top of the cans remain and the cylindrical form kept intact, cutting the can into thin strips or leaf-life forms which are then used like flower petals that surround small glass forms. The aluminum is primed and painted in acrylic paints so that the texts and patterns on the cans become intertwined with the design of the finished sculpture. Barcodes and nutrition boxes act as indicators of the materials origins, especially as the artist prefers to use cans sourced from small local brands and avoids the big name corporations whenever possible.
ARTISTIC PROCESS
Glass Blowing:
To create the blown glass forms, the artist partners with a fabricator who specializes in blown glass. First the artist creates a copper form using wire stripped from old cables or flat strips of copper sourced from a local lighting factory's waste. These are brought to the hot shop (glass studio) so that the glass can be blown through them. To achieve this, depending on the size of the piece, 2-3 people are necessary to hold the copper in place, and blow the glass through it. As the hot glass expands, it touches the cool metal and adapts to the barrier, pushing outward where there are no restrictions. Because glass and copper melt at different temperatures, this allows for the glass to become the asymmetrical shapes we see in the finished pieces.
Once the glass has cooled to room temperature, the artist then examines the pieces, deciding which to leave clear, and which to add patterning to. When adding patterning, masking tape is used to create a design that responds to the form and lines of the copper. These designs are all hand created, and imperfections are embraced. The glass is then “cold worked”, which means altering the glass when it is in its cooled state using a variety of machines to cut, sand and alter the piece. Once masking is completed, the glass is placed into a sandblasting machine where the exposed glass is etched to a translucent state. When the masking is removed, these areas remain clear glass, and the pattern is revealed.
ARTIST NARRATIVE
Formative Years
My interest in Nature is directly related to my upbringing in a small Northern California town in a very outdoorsy family. Summers were spent in the Sierra Nevada’s as a child backpacking and being taught the “Leave No Trace” philosophy and practice for minimal impact on the environment. This train of thought, that not only do we have a responsibility to preserve nature, but that it also is integral to our own mental and physical health has seeped into all aspects of my life, including my artwork.
Artwork Development
In 2016 I had the opportunity to go to an artist residency in a very rural location in Pennsylvania. For this residency, artists are invited to stay for 4-week terms to focus on the creation of new work and/or research and development of new projects. For my stay, I focused on developing my skills and techniques in repurposing aluminum cans, knowing my access to other more traditional materials would be limited. It was here that I discovered how to use the aluminum almost like cloth, weaving and stitching into it, curling and forming it like ribbon or paper. Unexpectedly, at this same residency however, I discovered that the water smelled of gas due to fracking in the region. While on walks to retrieve clean spring water, I began to envision what I would be like to come upon plant-like forms with large bulbs at their centers. These visions of these plant-like objects remained in my mind for several years before coming to fruition. In 2018 the opportunity to take a glass blowing course focused on the technique of using copper cages. The results were the perfect match for sculptures I had been envisioning since that initial residency. I received a grant in 2019 from the Brooklyn Arts Council to pursue the development of this work and began the series that you see on display today. After a delay due to the pandemic, this project continued with a 2nd grant in 2022 where I was able to continue to complete the works in this installation.
Pandemic Walks
When the pandemic first began in March and April of 2020, I started to take long walks in the only natural setting I could easily get to, Greenwood Cemetery. Shortly after, as I was unable to go to a glass studio to create new work, I started to bring my completed sculptures with me on these walks. I would photograph them in temporary installations, setting them up as if they just happened to grow there and a part of the natural landscape. The results were a series of photographs that represented the strangeness and uncertain feeling of those early days of the pandemic when all of a sudden, our world felt surreal and altered. In the act of bringing my creativity to nature during such a strange time, the act of doing so gave a sense of healing, perseverance, and hope for a better future.
