Cathy Della Lucia (b. South Korea) is a sculptor working in Boston, MA. She creates multi-part sculptures from wood, ceramic, and digitally fabricated materials that are designed to come apart. Her work explores modularity and the relationship between the body and objects such as tools, toys, and weapons.
Her work has been featured in Sculpture Magazine and Boston Art Review, and her recent exhibitions include the 808 Gallery at Boston University, Mazmanian Gallery at Framingham State University, Overlap Gallery (Newport, RI), and Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston, MA/ Los Angeles, CA).
She has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and The Blue House (Dayton, OH). Cathy holds a BA in Studio Art from Xavier University and an MFA in Sculpture from Boston University. She is currently Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Boston College, where she teaches sculpture and 3D design.
contact: dellaluciac @ gmail.com
instagram: @cathy_dellalucia
Artist Statement
My work uses modularity to explore themes of (im)permanence, (un)belonging, and gamification. Through multi-part sculptures designed to come apart, I examine relationships between the body, tools, toys, and weapons. I’m interested in how the connections between the body and these objects can mirror, inform, and be repositioned to evoke bodily experiences with inanimate materials.
The carved units that make up the sculptures are drawn from fragments of everyday life that suggest bodily sensations without being literal representations of the body. A unit might be a half-bitten fishing lure or a discarded crutch. These elements signify distraction, yet are created through obsessive attention. I’m interested in playing with the familiarity of form and disguising it through layers of translation. The object is translated through drawing, digital renderings, scale, color, and material shifts.
I’m drawn to the universal familiarity of wood and clay histories in domestic spaces and their association with objects of protection, consumption, ritual, play, and violence. These materials can become both structure and skin, container and contained. Their identities can be coaxed out with oil or disguised behind color and varnish.
The labor-intensive process of carving, sanding, and reassembling allows me to reacquaint myself with these materials through touch and abstraction. Using furniture joinery techniques and tension, I create forms that have bodily presence using offcuts. These sculptures can be easily disassembled, repositioned, and reassembled on my own. The process of deconstruction and reconstruction during the creation and installation is integral to the artwork’s identity. The sensory experience of tight dowels squeaking or joints clicking together offers an alternative way for familiarity to embed itself in objects. The relationship between parts creates a system where function defines form and vice versa. The whole is shaped by the parts, and the hole is defined by what’s left behind.