Foggy Bottom Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit
Washington, DC, 2012
Since 2007 I have been working on a series of large-scale steel sculptures that symbolically represent the root systems of various plants. My sculptures are site specific or site responsive; they are made out of elements by process of attachments to envelop big volumes in space, sort of painting in space. At times I work from the roots themselves, which I dig out of the earth; other times I photograph, copy or draw roots as the basis for my work. I try to uncover the hidden beauty of roots, exploring the relationship between what grows above the ground and the invisible parts below of various root systems. My sculptures reveal what nature prefers to conceal. My wish is to uncover and discover roots even when they are hidden, indeed especially when they are hidden.
In this installation I responded to this minimalist contemporary townhouse with a wish to somewhat overwhelm it but in a delicate way.
To quote Jay Sanders, who is this year’s young curator of the Whitney Biennale
“I like that ambiguity, I guess I like things that are subtly self-evident, but that are manipulated in a way so they shift their relation to reality”.
Adrienne Urbina, Dalya Luttwak Makes Art That Grows, Foggy Bottom News, July 25 2012
Michael O'Sullivan, "Foggy Bottom Goes a Little Bit Wild", The Washington Post, May 11 2012
Kriston Capps, "Parks and Resignation", Washington City Paper, April 27 2012