Augustine Dall'Ava

Augustine Dall’Ava’s Zen screen, 1978, references shoji, a room divider made of translucent sheets on a lattice frame used in traditional Japanese architecture. In what could be described as a staged landscape, separate components sit side by side, each painstakingly considered in terms of proportion and weight, both physical and symbolic. Each form, holding multiple connotations, is placed in dialogue within the constructed space.

Japanese Zen philosophy also informs this work, in the aesthetic principle of fukinsei, meaning asymmetry or irregularity. The idea of controlling balance in a composition through asymmetry is a central tenet of the Zen concept of wabi-sabi. In this way Dall’Ava’s work presents the changing formal dynamics found in nature itself – harmonious relationships that are asymmetrical yet balanced.