Hila Laviv Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1974 -

Hila Laviv; Artist statement;

I come from a dynasty of Swedish Feminist women. They are an inspiration to me for their free spirit and their tradition of making things from scraps of everyday materials and all kinds of simple inexpensive and leftovers. My deep passion for making art is connected to my grandmother, Noni. She was born in 1922 to a Swedish mother and a German father in Hamburg. She lives in the desert, and misses most of all the strawberries in the forest. Her house is full of longing and offers comfort through books in a language that I don't recognize, small furniture made of matchboxes, dolls made of acorns, paper lampshades with illustrated animals, earrings made of flowers and dried leaves decorating the windows. My memories of Sweden and the legacy of the dynasty, which I never actually met or visited, were transferred to me by my grandmother and the things she has in her house. My project is, among other things, an attempt to continue a heritage that could be disconnected and perish from the world.
Another legacy I carry is Minimalism, or more accurately Post minimalism sculpture. My objects are exposed almost naked and devoid of any element of concealment, and illusion. My work can always be described as a D.I.Y set of instructions. I am thinking of Serra's list of actions and the thought of a work of art that arise from simple exposed actions creates an almost genetic link between my line of Swedish women and post minimalist sculpture.
Stories are buried in the abstract objects I make. I swallow the kind of stories which I am already consumed by. Though my work starts from my love and attachment to a story, my motivation is related to its mechanism. My method is surgical, using scissors and cutter, precise on the one hand and whimsical on the other holding on random things and full of the joy of invention. The works are moving between the concrete story and its shadow while the story fades systematically.
I am working with simple instruments and low budget means: mainly plastic bags, tape and all kinds of paper like crepe, cellophane, shiny paper etc. My work includes meticulously made collages and large-scale space-installations in different kind of spaces: indoors and outdoors, white cubes and abandoned houses. The main mechanism which I use is a mechanism of cutting and perforating, using all the leftovers falling through the holes. Like a wild parody of what women do traditionally. The results are spectacular and macabre, and at the same time deal with the disappearance of the surface. The tactile materiality of the works raises elusive fragments of narratives and images that cannot be fully captured, like a shadow that shifts forms constantly, and never settles. Two-dimensional objects "inflate" themselves and become three-dimensional with architecture and air. The works appear to be graceful and sever, unstable and flexible, and manage to seem hermetic and scattered at the same time.