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 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 received a 2025 Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship.
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 explores themes of (im)permanence, nostalgia, and the gamification of labor and systems through modular, multi-part sculptures built to come apart. These sculptures draw on the shifting relationships between tools, toys, and weapons, and how such objects both act upon the body and are shaped by it. These shifting relationships blur the line between material function and physical lived experience.
Sculptures are made up of multiple carved units modeled on fragments of everyday life that imply bodily experiences without directly representing the body. A form might resemble a half-bitten fishing lure, a malfunctioning airplane seat, or a crutch that has been altered with a towel and tennis ball to fit a body.
I work primarily with wood and clay for their long histories in domestic spaces and their ties to protection, consumption, ritual, play, and violence. These materials act as both structure and skin, container and contained. Their identities can be coaxed out with oil and water or disguised through paint, glaze, and varnish. Alongside these traditional materials, I use digital fabrication and manufactured materials often associated with mass production and the loss of the hand. Sometimes these materials stand in opposition, yet bringing them together allows me to address the role of resistance and imperfection in the fabrication process. The manipulation of materials, whether traditional or digital, allows me to translate the language of objects into bodily associations that can be felt through material.
The sculptures come together in parts through repetitive carving, sanding, and reassembling. Using furniture joinery techniques and small offcuts, I build forms with bodily presence that can be disassembled, repositioned, and rebuilt. The acts of construction and deconstruction, from the squeak of tight dowels to the click of joints fitting into place, are integral to the work’s identity. Through handling and repositioning, the sculptures take on a bodily quality, becoming translations of gesture, strain, and play. My practice often works against ease or permanence, whether by resisting the material itself, the familiarity of form, or the flawed uniformity of mass production in order to highlight the human character embedded in objects.