Gina Telcocci ~ Seedpod and Beeswax Sculpture
Gina Telcocci is a sculptor and installation artist devoted to the power of the hand-made object. Raised the child of an organic gardener and a jazz musician, Telcocci grew to revere nature and natural processes, and to see, in improvisation, the synthesis of math and beauty as an adaptive strategy.
Of her work, Telcocci says: “My impulse to do art is rooted in a love of the physical world, and an irresistible urge to make. I fashion things by hand using mostly simple, ancient techniques (basketry, joinery, sewing & weaving), which are profoundly rich in meaning and feeling.
Working with reed, wire, wood, and other organic and found materials, she uses a variety of assemblage, traditional crafts, and weaving techniques. Her sculptures are mostly abstract, with an emphasis on structure and form, but with textural and layered complexity.
Telcocci's Seedpod and Beeswax Objects Series “from the evidence locker” are
composed of hundreds of seedpods (mostly eucalyptus) collected around the San Francisco Bay Area, and beeswax, these sculptures evolved out of an impulse to make forms out of multiples, into this series replicating everyday objects.
“The objects that I instinctively chose to replicate seem like clues from some old film noir. That’s why I call them “from the evidence locker”. I started with the stiletto, and one thing led to another, blah, blah, blah, and I ended up with a Smith and Wesson”.
But Telcocci doesn’t want to tell a story – “I want to suggest possibilities for viewers to elaborate on in their own heads. I enjoy the nostalgia of those objects and the moody scenes and locations they call up. But those familiar objects are also interesting for the power and authority they convey”.
Telcocci has received numerous grants and awards, including from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Pollock/Krasner Foundation, and the City of Oakland, CA. Public commissions include Potrero Hill Library, San Francisco, CA, Albany Memorial Park, Albany, CA, Walnut Creek Library, Walnut Creek, CA, and UNM/Los Alamos, New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited across the U.S., in Mexico, and South Korea.