Featured: “This is where my beard should be” (collaborative work-in-progress), 2024
physical bodies, contact mics, sound, to-be-made screen-printed sound portraits
Resisting body dysmorphia and binary-logic-systems of gender and value, “this is where my beard would be” records embodied desire while offering intangible, experiential joy. Audio is recorded through contact mics as participants imagine their unrestricted, physical expressions of gender.
This work-in-progress involves collectively generated sound, which will be translated (sound frequency to color tone) into abstract, vibrant, screen-printed portraits. These portraits will be a celebration of non-binary beauty and undeniable vitality.
“Trash Portraits”(Work-in-progress), 2024
Discarded materials, light
dimensions variable, this version measures
66-3/4″W x 28-1/2″H
“Shelter”, 2022
Leather, pine, birch ply, local stone to display sight, pigment, stainless wire, plexiglass. Structural components held together only by tension.
Leather form 5′-11″H Installation footprint approx. 30′ x 30’
How do we house ourselves under extreme tension–amid unsustainable, unstable structures? Who is called upon to provide a feeling of home?
This work examines the effect of extractive development practice on home and habitat destruction, the individual struggle for shelter within anti-human systems, and the resistance of building whatever home you can with whatever tools you’ve got.
“Shelter”(detail and with guest), 2022
Leather, pine, birch ply, local stone, pigment, stainless wire, plexiglass. Structural components held together only by tension.
Leather form 5′-11″H Installation footprint approx. 30′ x 30’
shift/symbol/body, 2019
Sheet steel, forged pipe rivets, pigment, oil, foam core, ground, participant(s)
Steel ring itself 102”L when fully extended.
“shift” simultaneously holds the play involved in changing public appearance and the desperation inherent in trying to survive in systems of binary value—trying to please and survive by finding externally-desired, superficial form.
“Signs”, 2020
Steel, stretched paper, fastening adhesive, sound, wind
Installation dimensions vary, each individual unit 27″H x 9-1/2″W x 1/4″D
Free of binary statements, “signs” focuses on the structure underneath capitalist communication—reimagining the directions we could go in with a more spacious understanding of value. Also a sound piece, the paper center of each sign expands and contracts in response to the humidity of the world around it, changing its tone to reflect its environment. Shown here in New Orleans.
“hinges”, 2022
Ink, water, wall
Approx. 10’H x 12’W
These anthropomorphic shapes—based on the artist’s experience of grinding huge batches of steel hinges for commerce—call into question the humanity of the individual within systems of capital which demand conformity. Retaining individuality within a rigid system, this mural highlights the small acts of rebellion inherent in wavy lines which refuse to snap to a grid.
“ninches”, 2019
Plaster, cotton, aluminum
Each block is 3″H x 1-1/2″ W x 1-5/8″D
Cast into discarded packaging, these empty niches leave room for what actually deserves reverence—their dependence on, and connection with, one another.
“binary block”, 2020
Sheet steel; form pressed; seal-welded; ground; polished; finished with pigment
2’H x 3’W x 2’D
What is a binary? Since everything is fabricated, we might as well build something more expansive.
Bio:
lauren mcavoy is a queer sculptor, influenced by labor, joinery, time, repetition, physical engagement, and anti-capitalist collective organizing. Shaped by their background in heavy construction—in relationship with their lifelong experience of gender performance—they are currently an artist in transition. Embracing the care and craft learned through a decade and a half of welding/fabrication, foundry, smithing, structural engineering, and mechanics, they are presently expanding into softness, both creatively and as a general human.
Born in New York state, and coming up in New Orleans, they’ve been shaped by places where human relationships are the thing that gets you through. On a lifelong trajectory of releasing dissociation, they are informed by their experiences in both the grown and built worlds—particularly in regards to connection with plants/beings, outdoor living, and anti-supremacist land stewardship efforts. They believe that grief-letting is required in order to feel, heal, and move from a place of love which centers the life-force of all beings. Embodying this, their work acts as a space for non-hierarchical value-systems and non-binary belonging.
They believe it is possible to resist through roundness.
